Scrapper: Movie Review

Cast: Lola Campbell, Harris Dickinson

Director: Charlotte Regan

A curious mix of the quirky and the heartfelt, Charlotte Regan's Scrapper concerns itself with the tale of a 12-year-old girl whose mum has died and whose father has been AWOL for a long time.

A precocious and impressively confident Campbell plays Georgie, who's somehow managed to convince the social services she's living with her uncle Winston Churchill after the death of her only parent - so she doesn't need any intervention from anyone.

Spending her days robbing bikes from the locals and selling them on, Georgie lives in a haze of self-belief, a situation necessitated by her own solitude. But it's shaken one day when her father Jason (Triangle of Sadness's Dickinson) returns out of the blue.

There is a scrappy vibe to Scrapper, a film that starts off with such energy and vitality as well as extreme confidence but which settles into a more familiar vibe once Georgie's dad shows up.

Beginning with bluster and slicing in quirky to camera mockumentary-style interviews and soundbites from those who swing into Georgie's orbit, Regan sets up a novelty of quirk that threatens to burst the proceedings of the more traditional kitchen sink drama that this is clearly drawn from.

But while that will annoy some, it's a clever way to force you into empathising for Georgie, the little scrapper who's fighting her way through life.

Equally though, Dickinson's Jason is scrapping his way through as well - and the pair make for good bedfellows as they struggle to find a groove for a potential relationship. It's essentially a story about a too-young father finally facing up to his responsibilities and Dickinson, with his angular frame and blonded out locks, makes a compelling case.

Granted there's a predictability to where this story will go, and while Campbell's impudent and cheeky way with one-liners masks a vulnerability to her character, there's never any real doubt what the conclusion will be.

With connection being the main thrust of this piece, Scrapper just about emerges victorious from the melange of medleys and familiarities, but it's largely due to Campbell and Dickinson who make diamonds from the occasional coals the script fires their way.