Urchin
Writer/director Harris Dickinson and lead actor Frank Dillane deserve the highest praise for this portrayal of the struggles of a homeless man.
Image courtesy of Picturehouse Entertainment.
The career of Harris Dickinson can hardly be said to have followed a conventional path. That was illustrated at its outset by the fact that, having been born in East London in 1996, Dickinson's breakthrough role honoured by an award from the London Film Critics’ Circle found him portraying an American youth from Brooklyn. That was in the 2017 film Beach Rats. Back in the UK he would subsequently appear in such socially conscious dramas as County Lines (2019) and Scrapper (2023) and, alongside some more commercial ventures, he would also appear in Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir: Part II and take a leading role in Ruben Östlund's arthouse success Triangle of Sadness. For all this to lead on to stardom playing opposite Nicole Kidman in Babygirl and now to have been chosen as the actor to play John Lennon in the new Sam Mendes four-part project about The Beatles might seem like a striking yet natural progression. But what could not have been anticipated in any way was the arrival of Urchin, a film which won the coveted FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes this year and which, following four short films made by Dickinson as writer and director, marks his feature debut in these two capacities. It is a quite remarkable work.
The nature of Urchin is such that it is totally apparent that it was born not as a commercial venture but as a film that Dickinson felt that he had to make and which would reflect his concern about homelessness. That was something which he had observed in his youth and which for some time now has led to his personal involvement in initiatives to help the homeless. As an example of an actor making a feature film which mattered deeply to him and which he had written himself, the nearest parallel to Urchin is probably Nil By Mouth which Gary Oldman made in 1997. By that time Oldman was almost forty so Dickinson's achievement is all the more striking for coming so early in his career.
Although homelessness is the constant background here, Urchin is essentially a portrait of an individual. His name is Mike Wilsher and he is played quite brilliantly by Frank Dillane who is on screen virtually throughout. When we first see him he is begging in the street and is sleeping out. But what follows does not play out as a drama all too obviously set up to create easy sympathy for him. Instead it offers a study of a person who is difficult to comprehend but whom we are asked to recognise as being a human being struggling with impulses and experiences that are often driving him but which even he cannot fully understand. Early on in the film a stranger, Simon (Okezie Morro), comes to his aid after Mike is involved in an altercation with a thief known to him (a cameo role taken by Dickinson himself but originally intended for another actor). What happens then is that Mike suddenly turns on his benefactor and steals money and a watch. He runs off but is caught and arrested and spends eight months in jail as a result.
However, the film quickly moves on to his release and we find him with a woman from social services, Nadia (Buckso Dhillon-Woolley), who in addition to finding a hostel where he can stay can advise as to jobs. We follow him when he starts to work as an assistant chef and subsequently in another job as a collector of litter. In the first case we see him with fellow workers who invite him out for an evening of karaoke and in the second he meets a French immigrant, Andrea (Megan Northam), who gets him into her bed. She also introduces him to an older couple of outsiders who offer Mike ketamine and that leads him back to drugs and drinking, something which had marked his five years of homelessness but which he had then managed to set aside.
What becomes clear is that Mike is essentially a loner whose life is likely to be one always marked by ups and downs and that he is somebody who is frequently his own worst enemy. One particular development finds him agreeing to participate in a restorative justice scheme whereby he and his victim, Simon, will be brought face-to-face to talk about what happened. When that occurs it is all too clear that Mike is not ready to face up to things and to engage with his own actions and the meeting may even make him less ready to do so. But essentially we see Mike as a man not in control of himself but driven by the forces within him. Dillane's complete identification with his role ensures that, even if Mike is not somebody who can be fully understood in a meaningful way, he is absolutely real to us. Furthermore, that sense of realism extends to the other players (Dhillon-Woolley and Northam in particular have exactly that quality in their performances) and to the way in which Dickinson presents the material. Nevertheless, he adds at intervals unexpected touches of surrealism in fanciful images. These could have been presented as dreams from which Mike awakens but that does not happen and in consequence they suggest a symbolic representation of the need that Mike has to delve into his own psychology which he is in fact unable to do. This change of tone could be regarded as a distraction but it is sufficiently controlled to be acceptable. However, there’s an exception to that at the very end when even more stylised imagery loses its force because Dickinson makes the mistake of accompanying it with a piece of classical music which we associate with a different context altogether. It’s all the odder that this miscalculation should be a musical one because elsewhere (and especially in that karaoke scene featuring the song ‘Whole Again’ by Atomic Kitten) Dickinson suggests that he might one day want to make a film musical!
For all its qualities in presenting a slice of life which puts before us what it means to be Mike Wilsher, I'm not quite convinced that this film’s portrait is satisfying and insightful enough for it to be hailed as a masterpiece. On the other hand, Dillane is brilliant, the supporting cast are fine and, most importantly, Dickinson as director handles this material with such precision and certainty that this is a notable debut. From time to time film actors do try their hand as directors even if some of them from Nicolas Cage to Bill Murray follow the example of Marlon Brando and do it but once. But after seeing Urchin, masterpiece or not, one feels that it would be highly surprising if Harry Dickinson proved to be of that number.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Frank Dillane, Megan Northam, Shonagh Marie, Karyna Khymchuk, Buckso Dhillon-Woolley, Okezie Morro, Michael Colgan, Amr Waked, Rupert Procter, Aga Kowal, Dianę Axford, Lacey Bond, Harris Dickinson.
Dir Harris Dickinson, Pro Archie Pearch and Scott O’Donnell, Screenplay Harris Dickinson, Ph Josée Deshaies, Pro Des Anna Rhodes, Ed Rafael Torres Calderón, Music Alan Myson, Costumes Cobbie Yates, Sound Ian Wilson.
Devisio Pictures/Somesuch/BBC Film/BFI/Tricky Knot-Picturehouse Entertainment.
99 mins. UK/USA. 2025. UK Rel: 3 October 2025. Cert. 15.
