By George Bate
There’s something inherently pathetic and even humorous about the irony people exhibit. Executives who publicly preach about work-life balance often berate employees for taking time off. Influencers lecture followers on reducing their carbon footprint fly everywhere in private jets. Government officials demand citizens cut spending while privately misusing public funds for personal travel. It’s this kernel of an idea, the contradiction between one’s public and private behaviors, that lays at the heart of Salvation, a resonant chronicle of masculine ambition and the destruction it causes.
Making its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Salvation follows Danny (Liam Harkins), a confident man who pursues a career as a life coach to get his aimless life on the right track. The road to success proves more difficult than Danny imagined, leading to make increasingly desperate decisions to stay afloat. Meanwhile, Scott (Stephen McMillan), a timid young man and one of Danny’s only clients, falls under Danny’s spell.
Taking place in Scotland’s Inverclyde region, Salvation tells an age-old story: People unhappy with their current conditions in life try to break free from the monotony of day-to-day living and finally excel at something. But in his feature debut, writer-director Tom Nicoll approaches this well-established tale with an eye toward the hypocrisy that runs rampant among online influencers and in male self-improvement culture, in turn commenting on unique issues in the broader context of a more universal narrative.
The film begins with a seminar of men, including Danny, learning how to become life coaches. This glorified weekend getaway of men speaking a whole lot but saying very little makes Danny a “certified life coach” and spurs him on to pursue riches and influence with his newfound skills. The irony is that Danny lives in a tiny house with a disgruntled roommate, works a dead-end job, doesn’t have a girlfriend, and finds himself struggling to make ends meet. Rather than play this contradiction for humor, Nicoll uses it as a way to showcase the susceptibility of young men determined to find purpose in life and expose the moral failings of those who take advantage of this susceptibility.
While Danny pays a portion of his meager earnings as a life coach to his teacher at the life coach seminar, he serves as a similarly manipulative, grifting figure in the life of Scott, a disillusioned young man struggling with depression and a harsh father. Instead of seeing the uncanny similarities between his strained life and that of Scott’s, Danny proceeds to exploit Scott’s timid nature for profit. Speaking with incredible authority and giving the illusion that he knows what he is talking about, Danny makes a personable, persuasive figure and finds an unfortunate mentee in Scott.
Succinctly put, Liam Harkins is a revelation as Danny in Salvation. Harkins deftly captures the duality of a man whose public persona is defined by grandiosity and confidence and whose private life is defined by desperation and struggle. Harkins plays the feigned role of a thriving life coach with the perfect amount of inauthenticity. He is outwardly kind and calls everyone “pal,” but he is a bit too nice with his tone, a bit too hollow with the words that he speaks, and a bit too desperate for his own good. It is clear from the get-go that Nicoll’s film is depicting Danny’s slow descent to ruin, and Harkins nails the increasing desperation of a man who makes poor decision after poor decision to make it as a successful life coach.
Similarly brilliant is Stephen McMillan, whose understated, quiet turn as Scott proves critical to the film’s central messaging landing as well as it does. Empathy comes quickly for Scott thanks to McMillan’s performance, which allows the audience to connect and even resonate with a young adult adrift in life. The audience can see the danger ahead for Scott as he falls ever more under Danny’s spell, and yet McMillan excels in conveying the most subtle indications of doubt in every moment of his performance. Scott may be following what Danny is saying and even befriending him, but, underneath it all, he seems to recognize the fraudulence of his mentor.
As Danny struggles to maintain a pristine image for Scott and his handful of judgmental family members, he spirals into a cycle of debt, taking out loans upon loans upon loans just to stay afloat. This spiral makes Salvation feel akin to watching a train crash in slow motion. Dread escalates from the moment the film begins. The destination is abundantly clear, but its predictability doesn’t get in the way of cringing, wincing, and shaking our heads as Danny’s life steadily falls apart.
In depicting the crumbling of Danny’s life, Nicoll appears to be commenting both on the waywardness of male young adulthood and the exploitative nature of influencers. When freed from the structure that traditional schooling affords, emerging adults like Scott struggle to find their footing and, perhaps more importantly, purpose in life. With a dearth of opportunities before them, these young men fall victim to figures like Danny, who seem to know it all and promise the world. Danny doesn’t even need to be particularly persuasive or convincing – he just finds vulnerable men like Scott at the perfect time to make them believe in his guise. Although not directly speaking about the manosphere and figures like Andrew Tate, it is difficult to not see real life people in Danny who similarly delude susceptible men with the promise of a great future.
VERDICT: 7/10
Making its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Salvation offers a scathing critique of self-improvement culture and online influencers in a film that thoughtfully comments on the tragic vulnerability of young men adrift in emerging adulthood. Tom Nicoll’s feature debut forecasts its ultimate conclusion from the get-go in the most calculated of manners, providing the audience a front row seat to the slow descent to ruin of a man who personifies irony and contradiction. Liam Harkins is a revelation as Danny by playing the feigned role of a thriving life coach with the perfect amount of inauthenticity. Stephen McMillan, meanwhile, excels as a young man who falls under Danny’s spell, yet subtly recognizes he may be full of lies. As dread steadily builds to its inevitable resolution, Nicoll’s film converges on resonant messaging about the waywardness of males navigating young adulthood and the susceptibility by which they come to follow misguided, untruthful figures like Danny. Although not directly speaking about the manosphere and figures like Andrew Tate, it is difficult to not see real life people in Danny who similarly delude susceptible men with the promise of a great future. A poised debut from Nicoll, Salvation brilliantly showcases the talents of two remarkable young Scottish actors and puts a unique spin on a tale as old as time itself.