A plucky 12-year-old living alone in the wake of her mother's death is
visited by the father she never knew.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Charlotte Regan
Starring: Lola Campbell, Harris Dickinson, Alin Uzun
Social realism meets magic realism with mixed but undeniably charming
results in Scrapper, the East London set feature debut of writer/director
Charlotte Regan. The title could refer to either a fighter or a
scrap metal merchant, and in this case both definitions apply to its
plucky yet vulnerable 12-year-old heroine.
Following the death of her single mother, Georgie (Lola Campbell) now lives alone in her council estate home. She supports herself by
stealing bikes with her best mate Ali (Alin Uzun) and selling
them on to a local no-questions-asked dealer. Georgie is a tough little
tyke, but the care she takes not to vacuum up the spiders that have
taken over her home suggests a tender side too.
Georgie maintains her tough exterior when her estranged dad Jason (Harris Dickinson) arrives. Having heard of her mum's passing, he's decided he should
finally play a role in Georgie's life, having fled to Ibiza when he got
her mum pregnant. Jason is clearly out of depth and not the sort of
father any social worker might approve of, but it's clear that Georgie
is cut from his cloth.
The ensuing drama sees Jason attempt to win over Georgie, largely by
teaching her more effective methods of petty crime. It's something of a
reverse Bicycle Thieves, with the film asking us to bond with the thieves rather than the
victims. Even if you've been a recent victim of bike theft you'll find
it difficult to resist Georgie and Jason's charms. For much of the movie
we're simply hanging out with the pair, and it's a delight. Dickinson
and Campbell share a chemistry similar to that of Paul Mescal and
Frankie Corio in
Aftersun, though this film's tone is far lighter.
Much of that lightness comes from the natural goofiness of Dickinson,
an actor gifted with the sort of face that instantly makes you laugh
before he even opens his mouth, and the precocious charm of Campbell.
The movie's best moments have an improvisational feel, like a riff on
Annie Hall that sees Georgie and Jason mimic a
conversation between a couple waiting on a train platform, and it often
seems like Campbell is setting the pace with her adult co-star relishing
the task of keeping up. This sense of two actors finding each other's
rhythm only adds to the dynamic of a father and daughter gradually
warming to one another.
The film's less successful moments see Regan employ magic realist
touches like spiders talking in comic book captions and a scrap metal
tower Georgie has constructed in her mum's old bedroom reaching up into
the heavens. There are also asides in which characters on the periphery
of Georgie's life give their tuppence worth regarding their relationship
with the kid. It all feels a little too quirky, a little too BBC "yoof"
drama. But such distractions are thankfully brief and the core of the
movie is a simple and endearing tale of two people finding family just
when they need it most.
