A troubled young man attempts to reintegrate into society after being released from a stint in prison.
Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Harris Dickinson
Starring: Frank Dillane, Megan Northam, Amr Waked, Karyna Khymchuk, Shonagh Marie
Here's the thing about being homeless: nobody has ever set out to be it. The people huddled in doorways, under the bridge, in the park begging, huddling, sleeping (of course you'd sleep in the daytime: at night the streets are vivid with danger) not one of them suddenly decided to live rough. Like all trouble, for the unfortunate, being homeless is something that is easily fallen into, but hard to get out of (I wonder how many removes you are from losing where you live, and if you still have friends or family that will put you up? Like most, I figure that I'm maybe two perfectly plausible disasters away from destitution...). The reasons behind homelessness are complex, with a significant portion of the unhoused afflicted with mental health and/or substance abuse issues. The latter aspect is a punitive double bind as homeless shelters refuse anyone who is drink or drug dependent, along with addiction giving weight to the "they'll only spend it on drugs" bromide. Well yeah. Let he who is without sin not get stoned; sometimes it is only the hope of my Friday night martini which gets me through the week of my (relatively cushy) day job. Fuck knows how I'd cope with being on the actual streets.
But here's the other thing about the homeless: cinematic representations often project the displaced as "other," a holy breed dispensing hard won life wisdom (viz. that Richard Gere vehicle Time Out of Mind, A Street Cat Named Bob, Down and Out in Beverley Hills), in simplistic and sentimental narratives which comfort the viewer with their removed suffering and unlikely redemptions. One of the reasons why Harris Dickinson's Urchin (he wrote and directed the film, and is also in it for a bit too, doing his usual gormless but gorgeous turn) impresses is in its complete aversion to romanticising its central character, recidivist substance abuser Mike (Frank Dillane), as he one step forwards two step backs through addiction, the gig economy and the streets.
We open on a London park wherein various homeless people weave in and out of the busy crowds. Via cinematographer Josée Deshaies, Dickinson's camera observes, almost in a documentary style, the invisible. Seemingly at random, he focuses in on Mike (looking exactly like pre-massive breakfast Pete Doherty), as he berates a noisy colleague for waking him up. We follow as Mike tracks down a mate who apparently stole his wallet, ending up in a pitiful catfight that most people ignore but which is eventually broken up by a decent bloke who then deigns to take the penniless Mike for some breakfast. Sobbing, Mike manages to pull himself together enough to get the jump on this good Samaritan, beat the shit out of him and steal his wallet and watch. Desperate, selfish, violent: Urchin is unafraid to depict its protagonist as a prick.
More Naked than Cathy Come Home, then, as hapless Mike is swiftly arrested: despite his protestations that the guy merely fell over, it turns out that the assault was captured on CCTV (a persistent theme is Mike's general ineptitude). We pick up with Mike months later, released from prison, ostensibly clean and willing to make a go of things, with the implication that this time really is make or break. It starts well, as he lands a job in the kitchen of a suburban hotel ("the best hotel in London," a deluded co-worker tells him). Therein, Mike forges connections with the other workers, leading to a slightly overegged night out which involves doing doughnuts in a car park, some mysteriously acquired fireworks, and karaoke: an uncharacteristically on the nose sequence which communicates the living for the weekend frenzy of minimum wage work, and also continues the 2025 trend (cf. 2 Become 1 in Together, the best song ever made in Bring Her Back) of Millennial bops on the soundtrack (Atomic Kitten here). However, with a melancholic inevitability, Mike can't keep the job due to a toxic blend of circumstances conspiring against him (such as a recognisably dickish patron haranguing Mike with an acute misunderstanding of steak searing), but also his own inability to cope with situations which require maturity and accountability. "You're constantly expecting some kind of sympathy," his tired boss bemoans.
And like that he's sacked, and ringing around for work again, the situation given urgency by the finite allowance of his short term digs (which Mike christens by means of an aborted attempt at masturbation: he is hopeless) and the unlikelihood of employees wanting a potentially violent ex-con on their books. The characters that Dickinson has established in the hotel, who we've begun to invest in, swiftly disappear from the plot and screen in a cute narrative device which communicates the transience of Mike's life. Along the way (always, forever) is temptation: drugs that would abdicate all responsibility, which would take the edge off, which would make none of it matter if only for a moment. A snake which will slip Mike back to square one...
It's a fairly typical story, but nonetheless one told with a surprising energy and freshness. I've avoided any equivocation with Dickinson's roles as an actor (because how trite), but one does wonder if the saleability of his name allowed him a welcome freedom in Urchin's spirited looseness. Periodically, we see Mike imagine himself in open caverns, expressive sequences which communicate his alienation, and which culminate in the film's strikingly abstract ending. These cinematic flights of fancy blend seamlessly with the brutal naturalism of Mike's hapless journey, throughout which Urchin never leans into easy bathos or indeed censure of its frequently odious lead character (also, as part of its pristine visual set, the film houses two perfectly executed jump scares - you never got that from Karel Reisz...). An exciting debut from an idiosyncratic filmmaker.
Urchin is in UK/ROI cinemas from October 3rd.
