David Farnor | On 21, Oct 2023

Director: Charlotte Regan
Cast: Lola Campbell, Harris Dickinson, Alin Uzun, Cary Crankson, Carys Bowkett
Certificate: 12

“I don’t need you to replace mum,” says Georgie (Lola Campbell) to her dad, Jason (Harris Dickinson). Absent from her life, he drops back into it when she’s 12, after her mum has passed away. And Georgie’s honest, blunt reaction emphasises Scrapper’s key strength: the ability to capture the nuances of the unique roles that people play in any family, no matter what shape they take.

Charlotte Regan, making an impressive feature debut, filters the mature understanding of experience through the innocent wisdom of a child, resulting in something that feels like the UK’s answer to The Florida Project or Beasts of the Southern Wild. There’s a deep-felt understanding of working-class pressures, shot through with wit, humour and no end of imagination.

We meet Georgia at her most resilient: living by herself and stealing bikes to get by with her friend, Ali (Alin Uzun), while convincing her school that she’s living with an unseen uncle, hilariously called Winston Churchill. When Jason appears, she wonders if he’s a vampire, or some kind of killer criminal, and Regan playfully cycles through all those possibilities with visual flair.

Teaming up with DoP Lola Campbell (How to Have Sex), the result is a creative and uplifting race through an emotional rollercoaster, combining on-foot police chases and straight-to-camera vox pops with comic book panel interludes featuring spiders who comment on the action.

All this invention behind the camera, though, wouldn’t work without a stellar cast. Lola Campbell instantly announces herself as a star talent to watch, balancing energy and bravado with a vulnerabile streak and an aching wound, as she tries to coach herself through her own grief. Harris Dickinson, meanwhile, is funny and equally lost as a guy who’s not ready to be a father but is trying to work out the right thing to do – even if that’s helping out with scratching the serial numbers off bikes. They share a dogged independence that paradoxically brings them together – and the chemistry that emerges gives Scrapper a boundless warmth and heart that doesn’t stop beating.

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