"Urchin:" Harris Dickinson’s (Almost) Great Debut

One of the breakout hits of this year’s Cannes Film Festival came from Harris Dickinson, star of the Palme d’Or winning Triangle of Sadness. After a strong run of starring roles in The Iron Claw and Babygirl, Dickinson made his directorial debut, this past May with Urchin. But is this the start of a promising directing career, or just another example of a Hollywood actor believing they can do everything?

Urchin is a slice-of-life drama about Michael (Frank Dillane), a young homeless man who roams the streets of London in search of money, food, or shelter. His life goes from bad to worse when, out of desperation, he robs a man who had offered to buy him food. Caught by the police, Michael is sent to prison for eight months, where he cleans himself up. Out of jail, he begins a rehabilitation program to help him stay off the street and find work.

At the heart of the film’s overall success is Frank Dillane’s lead performance, specifically his physicality. Dillane uses his frame well to showcase Michael at his highest and lowest points. In a pivotal scene where Michael leaves an art gallery opening after having a strong internal reaction to the work, he stumbles over multiple chairs to clear the frame. Slightly comedic in setup, but deeply moving in payoff. Michael is a man stumbling through life trying to make a better path for himself. Through Dillane’s performance, we visually understand that.

The film is often carried by the Director of Photography, Josée Deshaies. Having previously seen her work in Passages by Ira Sachs, one sees her admiration for texture. The film strives to capture every detail from the ordinary: the color of a building wall, the textile pattern of a cloth, the movement of grass on a hillside. She finds beauty in the passive, the constantly observed, to make the viewer re-contextualize what we take for granted in our everyday lives. Deshaies also creates an evolving cinematic language through the use of telephoto lenses. At the beginning, when Michael's world is out of his own control, she shoots the scenes in wide shots through voyeuristic telephoto lenses, like Michael is outside of his own existence. As the story progresses, when Michael’s life begins to reshape, the camera moves closer to Michael. Visually, we understand that Michael’s life is now back within his own control.

Urchin is hailed as a strong debut for its technical accomplishments and soaring lead performance. However, like many such cases of a known name taking their shot at directing, the narrative falls flat. This issue resides in another debut this year, Anemone. Both films dip their toe into the world of surrealism, losing control of the story’s core: character. Throughout Urchin, there are glimpses of a world within Michael’s head, a world of tranquility. After falling back into drug addiction in the second act, Michael begins to lose his world again. He ends up once again homeless and an addict, tragically losing the progress he made. In a traditional narrative, we’d see one of two things: either the protagonist hits rock bottom and, in the end, climbs their way back to the top, or hits rock bottom, tries to pick themselves back up, and fails once again. Once Michael has hit rock bottom, intoxicated on the floor of a convenience store, we enter the imaginary spiritual world of Michael. The film ends with him falling into a black void in this world outside of reality. In simpler terms, the film ends in the second act.

Urchin is an accomplished film with a disappointing lack of resolution. If Dickinson intends to end with him back at the bottom, that is fine, but a proper narrative arc would help shape that objective better. It would need a resolution like Inside Llewyn Davis, where, after a glimmer of hope, we realize that life continues for Llewyn. Imagine if Inside Llewyn Davis concluded with F. Murray Abraham’s rejection. There is certainly talent within Dickinson to create a wonderful film, and this is a strong start in parts, but Urchin does not succeed as one truly great work.