The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd

In a small town in Oklahoma, Karen (Amanda Seyfried) finds work teaching creative writing at a nearby maximum security prison. One of the inmates in her class, Wilson Shedd (Scoot McNairy), takes a particular interest in expressing his feelings on paper—and in Karen’s warmth and generosity. What begins as a mutually protective relationship becomes a potential escape hatch for the two of them, each trapped by their own troubled pasts and searching for a way out.

Seyfried follows last year’s The Testament of Ann Lee with another captivating and luminous performance in this riveting drama, while McNairy (known for his roles in Argo and as Woody Guthrie in A Complete Unknown) excels as the multi-layered Shedd, a man both menacing and sympathetic. In his sixth feature as a director, celebrated actor Tim Blake Nelson (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, O Brother, Where Art Thou?) skillfully weaves together a complex story of emotional connection with a penetrating exploration of crime, punishment, and redemption.