Urchin Review: A First-Time Director, and a Star-Making Performance

It’s not that movies about homelessness don’t exist; it’s just that the worst examples turn homeless people into plot drivers for the “real” heroes of the story, there to teach empathy or perspective or some other life lesson. In contrast, Urchin, written and directed by Babygirl breakout Harris Dickinson (who also co-stars), singlemindedly dramatizes the experiences of an unhoused person. There are no life lessons here, only an uncommonly focused look at one life – the sometimes joyful, sometimes punishing day-to-day existence of a young man whose future is more uncertain that most. 

A relative unknown – well, as unknown as anyone who’s appeared in the Harry Potter world can be (he played young Tom Riddle aka beta-Voldemort in Half-Blood Prince) – Frank Dillane won accolades at Cannes for his performance as Mike. We first meet him asleep on the street, follow Mike to a stint in jail, and watch with held breath as he attempts to reintegrate into society. There’s a childlike quality about him, in his unpredictability and in how he wears his emotions, from playful to wounded to raging, so plainly on his face. That makes for a performance of extraordinary vulnerability, but Dickinson, perhaps overstraining to avoid the kind of sentimentalism that dogs movies about disadvantaged people, keeps the camera at a respectful remove. It’s something of an observe-but-don’t-engage approach that lets the narrative unfurl in the way real life does, in dribs and drabs (that is, until the camera takes flight for a cosmic sendoff that didn’t entirely work for me). But Dillane holds the center, always. He’s transfixing.