Urchin review - superb homeless drama

Urchin feels like a genuine moment in British cinema. Thematically, it offers a highly original, thoughtful, affecting account of the endless cycle of misfortune and institutional ineptness that can trap someone in homelessness. At the same time, it marks the coming of age in the careers of two brilliant young talents. 

Harris Dickinson has been quietly asserting himself as an actor over the last few years, with a diversity of roles in films including Beach Rats, Triangle of Sadness, Scrapper and Babygirl, and in the TV mini-series A Murder at the End of the World. He cuts an idiosyncratic figure: tall, handsome in a sort of reticent, pinched way that feeds into often enigmatic characterisations. Now, with Urchin, and still in his twenties, he makes his feature debut as a writer and director with incredible maturity and style. 

Taking the lead in front of the camera is Frank Dillane, hitherto a reluctant star, who shied away from the fame and opportunities that might have come his way after a breakout performance over four seasons of the TV series Fear the Walking Dead. But he is spectacularly good in Urchin: hereon, he surely must establish himself as one of our most essential actors. 

Dillane is Mike, a rough sleeper on the streets of East London. The film charts what is implied to be just the latest round of an endless cycle in his life – from the streets, to prison, to probation and a possible journey into society, to a return to the slippery slope. 

The film starts at a downward part of the curve, as Mike cynically assaults and robs a sympathetic stranger on the street and is imprisoned. On his release, months later, he’s offered a room in a hostel and a job in a hotel kitchen. He grabs these offerings with almost childlike enthusiasm: doing his best at work, listening to self-help tapes in the evenings, making friends. But his room is for the short-term only, after which he will have no priority for council housing, the pressure of which is casually dismissed by an ineffectual probation officer with the words, “You know all this.” The clock is ticking, amid a cloud of inevitability. Dickinson, who has worked with various homeless charities in East London, for some years, and is clearly invested in the subject, offers a refreshing alternative to the typically gritty, kitchen sink depiction of homelessness and addiction that cinema offers. It speaks volumes to its quality that Urchin evokes both Cathy Come Home and Naked – Loach and Leigh – while being very much its own animal. 

The script has rays of humour and wackiness, showing the camaraderie that can exist amongst people on the margins of society, as anywhere. A scene in which Mike and two friendly female colleagues from the hotel sing Atomic Kitten’s ‘Whole Again’ in a karaoke bar is beautifully sweet and touching. There’s a surreal quality, too – if you like, a magic realism to match the social realism – as we glimpse Mike’s dreams and fantasies.

While there’s authenticity to the life on the streets (Mike’s wretched sleeping arrangements, his entreaties for cash from passers-by and interactions with street chums at a food kitchen) cinematographer Josée Deshaies (Passages, The Beast) eschews grit and grunge for a clean, crisp, colourful palette, jagged camera movements for mostly static shots. The result, which embraces Anna Rhodes production design, particularly of the highly imaginative fantasy elements, is hugely attractive. Dillane’ nuanced and compelling performance, which won the best actor award at this year's Un Certain Regard section in Cannes, adds to the appealing quality of what, normally, would be a very hard watch. His Mike is intelligent, articulate, willing to stick up for himself, a natural bullshit detector who just keeps on trying (pictured above, prepping for another job, as a litter picker). He can be at turns sweet, funny, sly, vulnerable and dangerous, with a puppy dog charm that is seductive but also hard to read. And you simply can't take your eyes off him.

While drug addiction features, heavily in Mike’s travails, there are other, deep-rooted demons; though these are merely hinted at, it’s clear that they’ve left him in some way emotionally stunted, always ready to break. One of the most shocking moments in the film is when it turns on its head the idea that restorative justice – those contrived meetings between assailant and victim – is inherently positive for all concerned.

That said, it’s clear that both director and star are uninterested in pat psychology or sugar-coating, let alone sentimentality. Mike is a sympathetic, but also at times appalling figure. And many of those he meets, including the restaurant manager, try their best to help him. 

Notable amongst a strong supporting cast are Franco-British actress Megan Northam, as Andrea, Mike’s first romantic interest for some time, whose briefly positive influence is undermined by the friends she keeps (main picture: a fabulously evocative sequence in which they dance in the countryside to Desireless’s "Voyage Voyage", is an interesting counterpoint to the karaoke scene) and Dickinson himself, in a small but highly entertaining cameo as Mike’s best friend and sometime nemesis on the streets. Let’s hope we continue to see him on both sides of the camera.  

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