Urchin

Mike lives on the street in London and spends his days sinking himself again: finding work and losing it, getting a place in a hostel and running from it, coming close to recovery and dropping back. In his first film as director, Harris Dickinson builds this as neither pity nor blame; the camera follows Mike's own logic and that logic arrives at the same place every time. He wrote the script after working on a furniture project in Walthamstow with people who were unhoused. Frank Dillane carries it physically and won best performance in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, where the film took the FIPRESCI prize in the same section. The abstract passages cut in periodically are its biggest risk. Who it is for: viewers who like British social realism and portraits built on addiction. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a recovery narrative, since the film does not break the loop.