A film that, aside from its spellbinding leading man and touching crucial themes about the habits that bring us down, again and again, also begs the question: “Who do the streets of London belong to? Those who thread upon them or those who call them home?”
Let’s get some important accolades out of the way first. Harris Dickinson’s debut feature Urchin features a once-in-a-lifetime performance by Frank Dillane who shines as Mike, a character who provides the cinematic roadmap to the kind of downward spiral any of us could take, down a rabbit hole of tiny but significant mistakes. Actor turned director Dickinson not only awes us with his knowledge and care when tackling this difficult subject, but in the process, creates a masterpiece of contemporary British neorealism, one you will see multi-nominated come awards season. Mark my words.
OK, now that’s out of the way, a bit of an actual review.
To watch British-Afro-Caribbean actor Frank Dillane play Mike in Urchin is to experience magic on the big screen. His fluid body moves through the streets of London as if he owns them, and actually, as a young homeless man living in the English capital, he does. Because anyone who spends their days and nights on the pavements of London really, really possesses the City. Everyone else, those of us who thread upon those streets, we are just passing along, until something else, or another place catches our attention. That proverbial question of who really owns the streets of a city, is answered confidently by Dickinson, who also wrote the screenplay for Urchin — along with his charismatic leading man Dillane.
Urchin could not exist without Dillane and good for Dickinson to have realized that. His shoulders held high, his hair in a constant state of unkempt frizziness — and yes, there is a hair and make up designer credited for the work, Lisa Mustafa, so it’s a purposeful evolution of disarray-into-a-kind-of-neatly-messy coiff as the story moves along. DoP Josée Deshaies, Bertrand Bonello’s wife in real life, shoots Dillane to perfection, his t-shirts twisting as he swaggers along in his dancer’s body. Because Dillane, as Mike, owns the screen as well as the cinematic streets of London. He’s a bit Denis Lavant in Leos Carax’s Mauvais Sang, running to David Bowie’s ‘Modern Love’; a bit Pasquale, played by Franco Interlenghi in Vittorio De Sica’s boys growing up too fast Italian neorealism gem Sciuscià; and a touch Robert De Niro’s watchable excess in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, whom he kinda imitates when he does a “What? What? Whaaat?” in front of a mirror, showing us how much of a loose cannon Mike really is.
While Dickinson explains in the film’s press kit that he’s worked with the homeless within his community, it’s not only his knowledge of the people and story which makes the film such a watchable masterpiece. It’s also his palpable love of the movies, and he seems to possess what I imagine to be an almost subconscious knowledge of films and filmmakers that clearly has bled, beautifully, into his own art. I saw hints of early 70’s American cinema, a-la John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy, although instead of sporting boots, Mike ends up with a pair of snakeskin loafers that are simply divine. For this fashionista, to see that although lost and left to his own devices, this characters still finds the joy in a new purchase — watch for the bit at the charity shop — makes for the perfect kind of filmmaking. Because even a story about a downtrodden life can be told in beautiful, cinematic strokes. And Dickinson appears a master at doing that already.
Actually, if I may, I’d like to admit this now and get it out of the way: I think Frank Dillane is this generations Marlon Brando, and not just because of the “Snakeskin” reference — in The Fugitive Kind it’s a jacket for Val, in Urchin, here it’s snakeskin shoes for Mike. There is a freedom, a command of his own body, voice and presence that equals the great one as a young man. And that’s something great in itself, because to mesmerize an audience is a grandiose feat of talent.
But a bit of a story, I think, would be in order now, to let you in on the secret of why I love this film — with all my heart.
Mike (Dillane) is a homeless guy, what they call in the UK a “rough sleeper”. Young, still possessing all his teeth and not the kind of homeless man you’d expect to see sleeping on roofs and on the floor of garages (car parks), Mike is an addict. In one scene, very early on in the film, he gets into a fight with another homeless man, Nathan played by Dickinson himself, only to be separated and helped out by a professional looking guy working in the City, who offers to buy him a bagel.
Urchin is an addict’s story and not a Cinderella-style fairy tale, so even the encounter with this good Samaritan turns into a heap of trouble, which leads Mike to be arrested. While in jail, he cleans up and upon his release, a few months later, he’s given a place to stay, what we call in the US a halfway house, as well as career guidance. Turns out Mike knows how to be a cook and he gets a job in a kitchen, hired by chef Franco, played by Egyptian movie star Amr Waked — though not looking like a movie star here.
While working in what one co-worker calls “one of London’s hidden gem” of a hotel/kitchen — which is where Dickinson himself also worked IRL before he made it big by playing the “Balenciaga/H&M” model in Triangle of Sadness, and of course, the milk-feeding dominant man in Babygirl, starring Nicole Kidman — he encounters two women, co-workers at the hotel, who show him life as it can be, fun and carefree and lived in an orderly way. And Mike begins to love it there.
But the system is stacked up against him and his anxiety at having to find a new home once his “parole” period at the halfway house is up, makes Mike turn to what is familiar to him, beginning another downward spiral from which he may, or may not recover.
At the heart of Urchin is a complex character, one that, even when faced with love, turns it into something of a commodity. Yet we feel Mike’s struggle, we hear his pain even if his demeanor is better suited for a toddler, even in the way he holds his head and fidgets in the clip above.
When he is fired from his cook’s job for acting like a child — something he reverts to in times of stress, probably because he never had a chance to properly grow up — he then gets another job with an old boss, picking up litter in parks. It’s there that he encounters Andrea, played by French actress Megan Northam, an equally free spirit, though perhaps more naturally so, who has built herself a cute little tiny house and lives amidst a community of older misfits. He clicks with her maternal ways, and is attracted to her freedom, but also we imagine, the cozy home she has made for herself from scratch. This is what I mean when I say Mike sees love as a commodity, to exploit for one’s own gain.
Along with the other members of this off-the-beaten-track community, they all sit around a fire eating and smoking, and then someone introduces “some K,” changing the game for the addicted Mike. His mandatory meeting with his mugging victim, as part of his “rehabilitation”, creates within Mike a sense of guilt which he only really knows how to deal with through self medication. And there is no better medication for that than a recreational drug. Or a lot of recreational drugs.
Ever devoid of judgement, the only thing Dickinson points the finger at, and perhaps raises a middle finger to, is the system. Stacked up against recovery and relief, it is a mechanism — all over the world — that creates victims and addicts, homeless and orderless people. Because helping someone for a few days isn’t the way to help a world like ours, obsessed with the immediate and the fast yet devoid of compassion and discipline.
Filled with humor and humanity, Urchin is what entertainment with a touch of compassion is about and it truly is one of the best films I have watched in the last year. This is the reason film festivals such as Cannes exist, so that a film like Urchin, with its quiet masterpiece of a story, can be talked about — mostly because of its star-turned filmmaker helmer and the charismatic actor he’s chosen as his leading man. Their presence on the red carpets and during junkets will guarantee a visibility which will carry this production from the Croisette to your closest movie theater, and into awards season.
Urchin plays in Un Certain Regard and is produced by Archie Pearch and Scott O’Donnell, it is supported by the BFI and BBC Film and is being sold by Charades Films.
Image courtesy of the Festival de Cannes, used with permission.