About halfway through “Urchin,” Mike (Frank Dillane) comes face to face with a man he once assaulted and robbed.
It’s a purposeful meeting, part of Mike’s recovery and rehabilitation (he’s an addict, but about seven months sober at this point). The meeting is meant to give both Mike and Simon (Okezie Morro) a chance to hash this out. Simon starts, detailing his feelings in a blunt, yet remarkably sensitive manner that doesn’t do anything to make Mike feel any better. In fact, Simon’s civility seems to just make Mike feel worse.
As Simon talks, the camera lingers on Mike, who gets increasingly uncomfortable until he finally starts to cry. Then, before he can say anything, the film abruptly cuts to the next scene, leaving us in that lurch right before we reach catharsis, refusing to revel in Mike’s despair.
Written and directed by Harris Dickinson (his feature film debut), “Urchin” features many moments like this one – moments that skirt the norm of what we expect from a movie about addiction. As a filmmaker, Dickinson certainly wears his references on his sleeve, but he also avoids a lot of the pitfalls that first-time filmmakers can so easily fall into.
“Urchin” starts off as something far more standard than where it ends up. We meet Mike at rock bottom, living on the streets, struggling with addiction, and taking it out on the first person who shows him any sort of kindness (before the assault, Simon buys Mike a drink and offers to buy him a bagel). He is quickly arrested, gets sober in prison, and is released with a place to stay, a job, and some sense of stability – at least, for now. The person assigned to Mike’s case, Nadia (Buckso Dhillon-Woolley), constantly reminds him how hard this is going to be, and that he should take it one day at a time instead of thinking long term. Essentially, don’t get too comfortable.
But, initially, Mike does well. He listens to meditation tapes, buys retro snakeskin shoes, and goes to karaoke with his coworkers. For a moment, it seems “Urchin” will be a heartwarming story about a guy who kicks his habit. But after Mike’s meeting with Simon, everything changes.
What “Urchin” really turns out to be is a story about the senselessness of addiction and relapse, about one man furiously trying to get and stay sober, but unable to see past his worst moments. We’ve seen movies like this before, but Dickinson’s ways of breaking convention elevate “Urchin,” even in conversation with his own influences. For as much as “Urchin” is clearly inspired by Mike Leigh’s “Naked” – another movie about a guy bulldozing his way through the lives of those around him – there are shades of something softer in “Urchin” than the unbridled fury that courses through David Thewlis’ character in that film. The colors that fill the world of “Urchin,” even when that world is grimy and dark, are vibrant. The world doesn’t match Mike’s mood or circumstance, but rather goes on in all its beauty with or without him.
Dickinson also doesn’t overly rely on closeups to tell Mike’s story, a testament to his restraint and also the tremendous physical performance of his leading man. Dillane plays Mike with a looseness you don’t often see in these types of movies – not twitchy so much as fluttering, sheepishly charming one moment and furiously cruel the next. Before the meeting with Simon, Mike is able to put the shame of what he’s done out of his mind, and his inability to confront his actions – whether he has pushed them out of his head or he was too high to remember in the first place – drives the action of the story. Dillane captures that constant battle between hope and shame with his entire being, whether he’s imitating Bruce Lee shirtless in front of a mirror, or curling in on himself when confronted with the reality of his deeds.
“Urchin” is rooted in addiction’s complexities. Mike is not a man who is fundamentally cruel, or sweet, or broken, or hopeful. He is, however, fundamentally haunted, and it’s difficult to avoid ghosts when you never know what will cause them to arise. That unknowable quality will send Mike on a downward spiral (quite literally, by film’s end) that he will always be fighting against.