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Scrapper

This debut feature from Charlotte Regan is a low-key, yet ambitious drama about a 12-year-old girl, Georgie (played by Lola Campbell) raising herself on a London housing estate. It becomes clear that she has lost her mother recently but is making a fair fist of it by half-inching bikes with her mate, Ali (Alin Uzun) and selling them to a local fence (apologies for the geezer language, but the film has that effect). Soon enough, the kids spot a wide boy jumping over the back fence who turns out to be Jason, Georgie's absent-until-now father (Harris Dickinson, last seen as the twatty model in Triangle of Sadness).

The central relationship is the focus of the film, along with Georgie's method of working through her grief, and this is all sweetly done. It has slight hints of another father/daughter film from this year, the superior Aftersun. I've been attempting to work out why I didn't really gel with Scrapper since seeing it a few days ago and I think it may be the tone. It's not anywhere near a bad film but I felt there was a looseness to the direction and it didn't quite live up to my more dismal sensibilities - I was expecting, maybe even hoping for, more Ken Loach and less Wes Anderson. Put bluntly, it's too chipper, too sanguine for me.

I thought the performances were naturalistic, especially Campbell and Dickinson, but there was a falseness there as well. Cockneys all around and not ONE single 'shite' or 'bollocks' uttered, never mind a 'fuck', and perish the thought of a 'cunt'. Throw me a Winstone-shaped bone, thanks. Also, the fourth wall breaking 'interviews' were twee and took me out of the film, and the emotional payoff at the end wasn't entirely earned, though it was played nicely by the leads.

I really wanted to like this more - the kid gets around in a football top for most of the film and I love the accents - unfortunately, it missed the mark for me. Maybe hopeful endearment just isn't my bag. Incidentally, I'm a bit puzzled as to the time frame of the film. It looks modern day (say, 2020 onwards), but the West Ham shirt Georgie wears is from between 1992 and 1999, when Dagenham Motors were the shirt sponsor for the club. I guess it scans that Jason said he gave her the shirt, which he may have used as a sprog, though it looks pretty new still. Minor issue, I'll admit.

See also:

Certainly, Aftersun (2022), directed by Charlotte Wells, and have a look at Ken Loach's working-class classic Kes (1969), if you haven't already. Plenty of dirty kitchen sinks in that one:)

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