Scrappy Charm: the Cheeky New Film about Grief that’s Winning Audiences Over
A story about an orphaned girl navigating her Mum’s death alone may sound heavy - but British indie ‘Scrapper’ harnesses an imagination and wit that will charm your socks off, innit.
good.film
a year ago
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Why should I see Scrapper?
Director Charlotte Regan puts a quirky and beautiful spin on a father-daughter relationship gently rebuilding after grief. It’s a winner.
What social causes does the film explore?
Family & Community, Poverty & Inequality
This week we’re posing a hypothesis: of all the relationships in cinema, don’t you think there’s something extra charming about dad & daughter stories? Maybe it’s the beauty of seeing the bond between two people whose interests are seemingly so different. Or perhaps it’s because they’re still relatively unexplored, so these tender stories have a certain rawness to them?
Often bittersweet, movies centred on fathers and daughters have a bit of a superpower to bring a laugh and a tear in equal measure. We’ve seen other examples, whether they’re focused on disability (I Am Sam), body confidence (Little Miss Sunshine) or mental health (which you can read about in our Guide to Aftersun here).
Now entering the fray is Scrapper, the magical underdog story from UK first-time feature director Charlotte Regan, who grew up in council housing herself. Touching on a Mum dying of cancer, a girl left to raise herself alone, and a returning Dad she doesn’t even recognise, Scrapper sounds like it has all the ingredients for a weepy kitchen-sink drama that’s as grey as a row of cement flats.
“I wanted it to be joyful and funny. I’ve seen films about working class lives where the characters get one minute of happiness in the whole film, where no-one is funny, everyone’s miserable. But that wasn’t my experience.”
~ Charlotte Regan, Writer/Director
Instead, Regan injects her film with quirks, colour and an imaginatively raffish charm, from the casting and camerawork to her inventive spin on how a 12-year-old child sees the world (and we get to see it that way, too). Even those grey council houses bring the fun: the production team found an estate that allowed them to repaint a row in pastel colours for Georgie’s block.
What is Scrapper about?
Georgie (newcomer Lola Campbell) is a 12-year-old from the outskirts of London, who’s been raised by her mum. Her cheeky mouth, ‘allo guv’ accent and love of wearing the same soccer jersey every day mark Georgie out as a strong & scrappy personality straight away, but she seems like a good kid too - vacuuming and doing laundry chores to keep her flat ship-shape.
It turns out there’s a reason for that - resourceful Georgie has decided to live on her own after her mum died. Why shouldn’t I?! she seems to ask the world (a title card beginning the film has the old adage “It takes a village to raise a child”, which gets quickly scribbled out on-screen and replaced with “I CAN RAISE MYSELF, THANKS!”).
Yep, Georgie’s doing a good job of convincing the world (and herself) that she’s coping, albeit not by the most legal means necessary. Nicking & selling off bikes with her mate Ali covers the rent, and thanks to some iPhone recordings and an older mate with a deep voice, Georgie has tricked social workers over the phone into believing that her uncle is living with her.
She’s independent, inventive and enterprising - but she hasn’t counted on who’s about to knock on the door next. “Are you Georgie?” asks the boyish 30-year-old with bleached hair (played by Independent Spirit Award nominee Harris Dickinson). “‘Oo’s askin’?” Georgie shoots back. “I’m Jason,” the man replies, elaborating: “I’m ya Dad.” It’s been so long, she doesn’t recognize him. But Jason spots something he gave Georgie years back: yep, that favourite soccer jersey she never stops wearing came from him.
Georgie’s not keen on a Dad, or a flatmate, or any kind of uninvited guest, and doubts his motives from minute one. What does he want? Somewhere to crash? To actually help? Or what if he’s a vampire? A prison escapee, or a mobster? (we see these little fantasies play out in quick-fire, childlike snapshots which flash us straight into Georgie’s dreamlike worldview).
How does Scrapper explore children’s grief?
The idea of writing a story about a child grieving came to director Charlotte Regan after her own experience of grief, losing family members over the past three years. Scrolling through YouTube, she kept coming across videos of kids talking about the loss of their parents. “They just have such a beautiful outlook on it,” says Regan. “They were so in the moment. I think we adults could improve ourselves by trying to be a bit more like kids during those moments.”
Georgie seems to deal with life in a matter-of-fact kind of way. We see her crossing off a ‘Five Stages of Grief’ pamphlet to track her emotional state (when Ali asks her what stage she’s at, Georgie replies “I ‘fink I’m almost finished stage 3 or 4”). This contrasts with Georgie’s hyper-realised way of looking at the world to process her grief: cue the talking pet spiders, comic-book speech bubbles and cotton wool lightning storms outside the windows.
“We wanted to try and push SCRAPPER to feel very un-British in some ways… funny and a bit eccentric. When I look at the film I think: there’s only one person that could have made this film and that’s Charlotte Regan.”
~ Theo Barrowclough, Producer
But when a mate tries to help Georgie find her lost phone - her main connection to her Mum via her collection of photos - she lashes out and hits the girl to the ground. It’s an outburst that flies in the face of her knockabout nature, and a hint to the inner turmoil swirling under the brave face she puts on (Georgie’s not alone - according to the ABS, 1 in 20 Australian children experience the death of a parent before the age of 18, and aggression, “acting out”, or temper tantrums are normal symptoms of grief in children that can last for 18 months or more).
The biggest clue to Georgie’s real feelings lies in her fantasy room, the one she keeps padlocked just for her. When she goes in, there’s a tower of scrap metal - old bike wheels, bin lids and rusty ladder parts - that she’s built into a place to climb, like a twisted metal treehouse. When she settles in at the top, the ceiling magically fades to give Georgie an imaginary view to the open blue sky. Even though she doesn’t quite believe it, gazing at the sky comforts Georgie - because it’s the place her Mum told her she was going.
What does Scrapper have to say about absent fathers?
Georgie doesn’t pull any punches when Jason first hits her doorstep, demanding answers (and some Chinese takeaway) from this so-called Dad. “So it’s alright to just leave people behind, is it?” Georgie drills him. “You never thought that leaving someone to raise a child on their own was a bit selfish?” When Jason explains he’d heard her Mum died, and he wanted to get to know her, Georgie shoots back straight-faced, “Why didn’t you want to 12 years ago?”
It’s an answer he just can’t articulate in the moment, making their relationship fraught from the start (while neither of them want to admit it, they’re so similar, they annoy each other). Jason’s strict about Georgie’s time with Ali, and he’s a pretty uninspiring cook. When Georgie steals his phone to look for clues as to why he’s turned up, Jason reacts with a startling anger - an insight, perhaps, into why things didn’t work out between he & Georgie’s Mum.
But Jason makes it clear he’s not leaving, and gradually Dad & daughter begin to bond. Not exactly on the straight & narrow himself, Jason watches over Georgie as she attempts another bike heist - and they laugh together as they’re sprung in the act, panting behind a wall after a foot chase with the boys in blue. They’re cut from the same cloth, even if it’s a bit patched up and ragged around the edges.
A far more creditable parenting effort comes when Georgie loses a tooth (ironically by biting down on Jason’s burnt garlic bread). She’s startled when he sneaks into her room later that night to check under her pillow. What are you doing?? Jason’s forced to explain the concept of the tooth fairy, which Georgie finds mystifying - she’s never had a visit from the tooth fairy before. It’s a bittersweet moment as Jason realises not only what he’s missed in his absence, but gets a glimpse all the things that Georgie has missed out on experiencing too.
“From the moment I saw her, I felt that she was the one. Lola just had a spark from the get-go. Her tape made us all laugh… she firmly stood out.”
~ Shaheen Baig, Casting Director
But soon after, Georgie’s attack on her schoolmate brings things into the ‘all too real’ category for Jason. After he tries to brush off the violence to the injured girl’s Mum, she angrily tells him “She definitely ain’t fine, you know. You need to check your kid!” and Jason realises, blimey, she’s right.
It’s at this point that we see just how far out of his depth Jason feels. “I didn’t sign up for all this,” his face seems to say. He’s still figuring out adulting for himself, let alone mastering great parenting skills. Especially the kind you need to raise a headstrong girl, tackling her teens without the support and comfort of Mum around.
What are critics saying about Scrapper?
- “Scrapper is a solar system of a film, with Campbell’s playful and defiant Georgie shining bright at its centre. You’ll not find many characters this year quite as likeable.” | Clarisse Loughrey, Independent UK
- ”Watching these two mutually suspicious strangers stumble toward forming a family makes Scrapper an invigorating treat, like finding wild flowers bursting out of broken pavement.” | Kyle Smith, Wall Street Journal
- “Seeking to parse through the fears felt in grief, change, and maturation, Scrapper is full of rare heart, a spunky embrace of ambitious empathy.” | Robert Daniels, RogerEbert.com
- ”Stylistically bold and youthful in approach, it’s a picture packed full of ideas and fizzing energy.” | Wendy Ide, Screen International
Fully on board, or disagree big time? We’d love to hear your take. Leave a review to share your thoughts with the good.film community!
So what’s the takeaway from Scrapper?
British director Charlotte Regan was just 15 when she started shooting no-budget promos for rapper mates in Islington, north London. Since then, she’s made over 200 music videos and her short films have premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, won prizes at Sundance, and been nominated for BAFTAs. No wonder Scrapper has such a creative, winsome feel.
When all that success brought her chance to create a feature-length story, Regan knew that she wanted to make a different kind of film about working class Britain; one that reflected the truth of her childhood spent partly living with her gran in a north London tower block. And just like Scrapper, what may sound bleak or disadvantaged was an experience that Regan actually remembers more like a holiday camp.
“Hanging out with your mates on the same street every day is magic. Everyone looked out for each other. I wanted that working class community feeling, grannies sitting on balconies drinking cups of tea and watching the kids.”
~ Charlotte Regan
Accessible and charming, Scrapper is more than just a ‘council estate kid’ film or a standard story about single-parenting or absentee fathers. It’s an honest appraisal of the complex roles that fathers can play as their children age in (and out) of needing them most - and a gentle viewing experience for any child or parent who’s experiencing grief of their own.
