Scrapper is a miniscule-budget film from a writer-director who specialises in miniscule budgets.
Charlotte Regan started making videos for local North London rappers when she was 15, and though she’s graduated to short films, and now features, she sticks to that level of street-reality.
Scrapper is about a 12-year-old force of nature called Georgie.
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The film opens with the old cliché “It takes a village to raise a child”, which is immediately deleted. “I can raise myself, thanks”, it now reads, and so she can.
After Georgie’s mother died, she lives alone in the house now. She goes out with her best friend Ali to pick up money by stealing bikes.
The reason Georgie seems to have slipped between the cracks – school, neighbours, social services – is nobody thinks to doubt her when she confidently claims she’s living with her uncle. Her uncle Winston. Uncle Winston Churchill.
What makes it funnier is how likely it is these days no-one would question that.
So there’s Georgie, getting by on her 12-year-old wits, improvising when anything goes wrong, and also working through her grief at the loss of her other best friend, her Mum.
Then one day there’s an unexpected visitor.
Jason must be about 30, but he looks and behaves far younger. He announces he’s Georgie’s Dad – a man Georgie never knew. He took off for Spain when she was born.
And it’s patently obvious to Georgie – and us – that Jason’s pretty much a waste of space.
Georgie and Ali try and outsmart him – which, let’s face it, isn’t that difficult. But Jason’s a hard man to lock out of her life, and it soon becomes obvious that he’s not going anywhere.
So, Georgie has to reassess, wondering what her otherwise sensible mother could have seen in Jason, and more to the point, will he and Georgie ever make a life together?
The hard thing about describing Scrapper is its unique tone – in particular how joyfully funny a film like this can be.
Yes, it owes something to years of low-budget, kitchen sink, British drama – particularly Ken Loach and Andrea Arnold. What lifts it is the kids’ perspective.
Kids don’t get hung up over politics or injustice or shaking their fists at the powers that be. Kids – these kids at any rate – are interested in their mates, getting by and having fun. And unlike the usual grimy world of this sort of film, Scrapper is full of vibrant colours.
The only greys on the screen are the clothes and offices of the unhelpful jobsworths at Social Services.
The most colourful things about Scrapper, of course, are Georgie and Jason. Jason is played by the only name actor in the film, Harris Dickinson who made his mark in the recent Triangle of Sadness and Where the Crawdads Sing.
But he knows his main job here is supporting the astonishing Lola Campbell as Georgie.
Campbell’s not even an actor – and it was touch and go whether she’d deliver on Day 1 of shooting Scrapper. But sometimes you have to have a bit of faith, and that’s clearly director Regan’s strong suit.
Because she’s not your traditional British film-maker herself.
One little thing you notice is never mentioned in the film – Campbell’s hearing aid. It’s like it’s no big deal to her, so why should it be a big deal to anyone else?
The other thing you notice is her neighbours - three 12-year-old black triplets, all on identical yellow bikes. No wonder reviews of Scrapper namecheck Wes Anderson as often as they do Ken Loach.
The other obvious comparison is another little film about father and daughter earlier this year, Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun.
The similarities are really mostly skin-deep – the ages of daughter and father, two directors called Charlotte. But they do share one other magical ingredient, a miraculous joy – for life, for jokes, and for human connection.
