Scrapper
Writer-Director Charlotte Regan makes her feature debut with Scrapper, a wonderful and expressive exploration of grief from the perspective of 12 year old Georgie (Lola Campbell) on an Essex housing estate. After the death of her mother (Olivia Brady), Georgie deceives social services into living on her own, maintaining a stable life by maintaining her home and stealing bikes with her friend, Ali (Alin Uzun). However, with the arrival of her long-absent father (Harris Dickinson), she is forced to readjust to life under parenthood.
It feels a little like the premise of a family comedy, and it is consistently funny - but it feels wrong to describe Scrapper in this way. The natural comedy of a 12 year old living on their own isn’t really the central “joke” as much as it is the film just having fun with its premise. Scrapper is, unequivocally, a drama, and takes its subject matter seriously, even if it doesn’t take itself completely seriously. Things border constantly on being fantastical, without ever going completely off the wall. Beyond the suspension of disbelief regarding the ways in which a child can rent and sustain a house in secret and on their own, Scrapper never strays too far from reality, and presents a fundamentally realist plot beneath its colourful veneer.
Stylistically, Scrapper combines classic British social realism with a subtle, charming whimsicality, and implements its style in a way that the realism and the fantasy never come into conflict. Despite its relative wackiness, to call it “magical realism” would probably be a misnomer, because at no point does the film stray from being grounded, treating both setting and subject matter with due reverence. Curiously, there is no contrast or dual style – the film derives from opposite aesthetics, and blends them into something singular and specific to the story being told. Essex becomes a dream world, an imaginary reflection of a real place, with real people appearing as they would in a dream – much like Georgie’s mother appears to her. It’s a remarkably unique representation of a child’s view of the world, portrayed almost as if the film is a sequence of childhood memories.
Scrapper is neither sickly sweet nor terribly horrific, nor does it lose itself in quirky visuals or dour reality – it finds a place in-between, and creates something unique and imaginative out of that. It’s a lovely approach, and one that has the potential to capture a broad audience as a playful, intimate watch. As a depiction of grief, it’s poignant; as a depiction of working class life, it’s wholly unique; as a film, it is absolutely worth consideration.
