Working Class Joy: Scrapper
Like Aftersun, this has such a great pacing and sense of personality and voice. We’re in a working class community, maybe an estate — maybe not. Scrapper is a defiantly self-sufficient and intelligent 12 year old grieving the loss of her mother Vicky. We can follow her grief cycle through this story with her — which she treats like a to-do list to practically get through.
Living alone, Scrapper resourcefully funds herself by robbing bikes and selling them on, with the support of her best mate Ali, and by recording voicenotes pretending to be from her ‘uncle’. (Really an obliging local shopworker). Although given how grey and beleaguered Social Services look (and the appalling treatment of looked after children in some areas of UK care), it’s not surprising that she wants nothing to do with them. Even if they are well-meaning in this case.
Then a man claiming to be her dad (Harris Dickinson) stumbles into her life and she definitely doesn’t want him around. Is he who he says he is? Can he be trusted? Why has he even come back? In contrast to the dad in Aftersun, this dad (Jason) is much more childish and less self-aware, thinking everything can be fixed with gifts and money, and trying as hard as he can to connect with himself as his daughter. Yet this is also a man struggling with deep emotions and himself to do the right thing, and his own grief — in letting everyone down and being unreliable and feckless. He is facing his own fears.
Blasting away from the kitchen sink or misery dramas, this is a working class movie with a difference — nothing is quite as it seems. Like Aftersun and Peckham Rye, characters are themselves without carrying the burden of being a type or of representing everyone and everything. There is colour inside and out. There is art and design, and wild flights of fantasy with talking spiders, and a Jack and the Beanstalk-like tower of dreams made out of scrap bits and metal. I love the young people’s thoughts turned into cartoonish KABLAM! style cut-aways. Even if you hate spiders, these ones have names and very funny thoughts, which appear translated into speech bubbles.
It’s also genuinely funny and has a weight of characters behind it as other friends and neighbours and community groups comment about events and Scrapper and Jason along the way. It’s terrific and I came out with a smile on my face. As Scrapper, Lola Campbell gives an absolute powerhouse and charming performance, totally convincing. Although the story is overhung with grief, heavy with it, the script and pace allow space and time for this without it dragging.
Go and see it for Ali (Alin Uzun), Ali’s chatty Mum struggling with all the reticent people around her and the unique styling of Jason’s hair. As well as Jason and Scrapper’s banter and bonding over metal detecting — they are both scrappers at heart.
