Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Daisy-May Hudson
Starring: Posy Sterling, Idil Ahmed, TerriAnn Cousins, Tegan-Mia Stanley Rhoads, Johanna Allitt
Quickly following Gino Evans' Treading Water comes another British social realist drama that explores its
protagonist's difficulty in integrating back into society following a
stretch in prison. This one is focussed on a female ex-con and comes
from writer/director Daisy-May Hudson. A decade ago Hudson
made her debut with the acclaimed documentary Half Way, in which she documented her own experiences of becoming homeless
along with her mother and younger sister. Hudson's real life experiences
lend a bracing authenticity to her first narrative feature.
Following a four month stretch, single mother Molly (Posy Sterling) is released to find that her two children are now in foster care,
having been handed over to the state by Molly's mother Sylvie (TerriAnn Cousins). Sleeping in a tent, Molly learns that she can't have her kids
returned until she finds suitable accommodation. Molly finds herself
stuck in a vicious cycle when she is told that she only qualifies
for a one-bed apartment unless she has her children returned.
Lollipop is an intensely stressful and emotionally overwhelming watch as
we witness a desperate mother make a series of ill-advised moves. We're
never told the reason for Molly's imprisonment, but her short fuse
offers some hints. Each time Molly explodes at an authority figure we
sink into our seats in the realisation that she's lowering her chances
of getting her children back, and yet we can understand her frustration.
When Molly absconds with her kids from a supervised meeting it seems
like she's finally hammered the final nail in her family's coffin.
But then a chance encounter reunites Molly with her old school friend
Amina (Idil Ahmed), who has fallen on hard times herself and is
living in a one-room flat with her own young daughter. The sensible
Amina becomes something of a den mother to Molly, getting her on the
straight and narrow and turning her into the sort of mother the state
might approve of. In return, the forceful Molly helps Amina come out of
her shell, encouraging her to stand up to a former landlord who has
refused to return a deposit.
The Ken Loach influence is unavoidable in any gritty British drama but
Hudson's portrayal of this milieu has an egalitarian approach that's
often lacking in such righteously angry dramas. The representatives of
the state aren't portrayed as one-note villains, and when Molly is
screaming through perspex windows we feel for the person on the other
side who has to endure this sort of abuse for 40 fours a week. Molly
blames her alcoholic mother for ruining her life, but she selfishly
fails to acknowledge how Sylvie is grieving from the recent death of
Molly's stepfather. When Molly and Amina visit the aforementioned
landlord they silently note a tribute in the home to a recently passed
child. Lollipop commendably acknowledges that everyone is carrying their own
burden.
Though Molly is the figure we're asked to sympathise with, Hudson
doesn't make it all that easy for us to do so. For much of the film it's
clear that Molly probably isn't mature enough to look after two
children, and in their interactions together it's clear that her
12-year-old daughter Ava (Tegan-Mia Stanley Rhoads) has a more
sensible head on her shoulders than her mother. But there are hints that
Molly has a history of being manipulated by abusers. In one of the
film's most powerful scenes, Sylvie forces her daughter to sing 'Amazing
Grace' at a memorial knees-up for her late husband. As Sylvie eggs on
her daughter with a cruel mix of encouragement and disappointment, the
camera stays on Sterling's face and we can almost see Molly regress to a
scared little girl as she follows her domineering mother's orders.
There's talk of Molly having suffered domestic abuse, which is unfairly
used as a black mark against her suitability for motherhood. This is a
film that's striking in its absence of male figures, the only one with a
speaking part being Molly's young son Leo (Luke Howitt). There's
a gaping void left here by absent men, with Molly's mixed race kids
indicating two fathers who have made themselves scarce. While Amina
never explicitly states it, there are hints in her coy responses to
questions regarding her own husband's absence that suggest Amina made an
escape with her daughter. This is foremost a film about female
solidarity, and even the women Molly views as her enemies are rooting
for her when it comes down to it. In a rare tender moment, Molly stops
haranguing a council employee when she spots the woman's pregnant belly
and is moved when she realises the child inside is kicking. For a brief
moment two women forced to sit on opposing sides are brought together by
their shared maternal longing.
Lollipop is in UK/ROI cinemas
from June 13th.
