Producers: Archie Pearch and Scott O’Donnell   Director: Harris Dickinson   Screenplay: Harris Dickinson   Cast: Frank Dillane, Megan Northam, Okezie Morro, Amr Waked, Shonagh Marie, Karyna Khymchuk, Buckso Dhillon, Holly de Jong, Lacey Bond and Harris Dickinson   Distributor: 1-2 Special

Grade: B

The genealogy of actor Harris Dickinson’s debut as a writer-director is fairly obvious: “Urchin” hearkens back to the kitchen sink dramas of Ken Loach, but most clearly to Mike Leigh’s 1993 “Naked.”  (Dickinson also appears in the film, uncredited.)

The protagonist is Mike (Frank Dillane, in an exceptionally vivid, multifaceted performance), a homeless drug addict living in the streets.  Awakening one morning to the voice of a preacher, he retrieves his bag and goes on a search for Nathan (Dickinson), a fellow addict he accuses of stealing his wallet and gets into a fight with.  Their tussle is broken up by passerby Simon (Okezie Morro) who offers Mike lunch, but when they walk to a diner Mike turns on the man, knocks him out and steals his wallet and watch, which he immediately pawns.  But the assault has been captured on camera, and Mike is quickly arrested, convicted and sentenced to a fourteen-month prison term.

Dickinson spends little time on Mike’s time behind bars, however, offering a cheeky scene of his entrance to jail (complete with a surrealistic moment that follows water flowing down a shower drain to what are apparently the subterranean recesses of his mind) and a sour phone call to his mother before skipping to his release after seven months.  The conference that follows with his assigned social worker Nadine (Buckso Dhillon) is perfunctory; anxious to get on to other things, she remarks that he’s well aware of the drill, having gone through it before, and assigns him temporary lodging at a hostel while implying that she doesn’t expect that he’ll manage to stay out of the system for long. She shows no interest in his implausible dream of establishing an upscale limo service.

Mike puts some effort into rehabilitation.  He goes to a charity shop for some new clothes and manages to convince Chef Franco (Amr Waked) to give him a job in his hotel restaurant.  He spends time listening to self-help tapes in his room, listening to reassuring messages about the possibility of changing his life. He also makes some friends, going out with two of them, Ramona (Karyna Khymchuk) and Chantelle (Sonagh Marie), to a karaoke bar.  But the person he grows closest to is his co-worker Andrea (Megan Northam), a free spirit who invites him to the caravan she calls home, where they get intimate and talk about their pasts and their hopes.

But it’s not to last.  Mike fails to respond well when Nadine arranges a meeting with Simon, is rude to a diner who complains about the food at the restaurant, and gets into a scuffle with a co-worker he accuses of slacking.  Franco lets him go, and the only work he can scrounge is on a litter-pickup team.  Worst of all, during an outdoor session with some raggedy friends of Andrea, he tries some ketamine and gets hooked.  It’s the beginning of a downward spiral that includes a visit to Nathan, now sober (at least temporarily) and living with a woman (Lacey Bond) who offers him some stability.  Mike’s drug and alcohol dependence unleashes his aggressive side, and he causes a ruckus in a club and then at a store where he tries to steal some booze. 

The film closes with a sequence that returns to the surrealism Dickinson has occasionally employed earlier—the sequences in a dark cavern that apparently represents Mike’s memories and fears, encounters with a strange old woman (Holly de Jong) who plays Paganini on her violin.  Now, disheveled and distraught, he sees her again and follows her into a chapel where Nathan, dressed in a robe, forces him through a door that leaves him spinning into the void, the end of his descent.

Dickinson has made a confident if somewhat derivative directorial debut, securing consistently fine work from his technical collaborators—cinematographer Josée Deshaies, production designer Anna Rhodes, costumer Cobbie Yates, editor Rafael Torreds Calderón and a visual effects team headed by Agnes Asplund—and his cast, especially the scruffily charismatic Dillane, who endows Mike with an undercurrent of charm that suggests how he can, when on his best behavior, ingratiate himself to others even when his motives are suspect.  Alan Myson’s score is used sparingly, but goes into dissonant overdrive as Mike’s mental state deteriorates.  The use of the Caprice 24 by Paganini at moments of special stress works well.

In short, an impressive directorial debut by the latest actor to try his hand behind the camera.