URCHIN (2025) - Mark Reviews Movies

Urchin, 1-2 Special

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | October 9, 2025

Homeless and trapped in addiction, Mike (Frank Dillane) doesn't have a tragic back story, or to put it a bit better, writer/director Harris Dickinson doesn't tell us anything about it if the man does. Based on what he does and doesn't say about himself and his past, we can kind of work out what has happened to Mike, but the past is irrelevant to this story. It's all about the here and now for this character.

That's how Mike lives, both before and after he spends some time in prison for a vicious and wholly unnecessary assault on an innocent guy just trying to help him. Before then in Urchin, he sleeps wherever he can or whenever he just passes out, which how we first encounter the man. He's asleep on a sidewalk, awoken by a street preacher whose evangelizing efforts are too loud for whatever kind of hangover Mike is sporting this morning.

Mike's regular routine is to ask strangers for money on the streets of London. Everyone he asks for some change passes him, most of them not even acknowledging the man's existence. With no cash on hand, he starts asking about someone he knows, an old friend or acquaintance who also doesn't have a place to live and is the only one who knows where Mike keeps his stuff. Mike's wallet has gone missing, so he assumes Nathan (Dickinson) swiped it. He's right in his suspicions, of course, and as the two wrestle over the stolen stuff, a stranger named Simon (Okezie Morro) steps in to break up the fight.

Simon can tell Mike's deal just from looking at and listening to him for a bit. He works for an organization that could help the man and offers to get Mike some food before setting him up with that help. Once they're alone under a bridge, Mike returns the favor by punching Simon, beating him while he's on the ground, and stealing his watch.

Whenever he's asked why he attacked Simon, Mike doesn't have an answer, or to put it a bit better again, he doesn't say it aloud. It's probably too simple, not much of an excuse or a justification for the violence, and says something about himself that Mike doesn't want to admit. He needed some money, had the opportunity, and took it, because Mike needed a drink or some drugs or whatever it would take to make him forget whatever it is he wants to forget about himself.

This is Dickinson's feature directorial debut, and the actor shows a lot of insight about his main character and this world of addiction, rehabilitation, and relapse, simply by presenting them in a straightforward and unapologetic manner. Mike never has a moment here in which he tells some story about the first time he had a drink or did drugs, when he figured out he had an addiction, or some childhood trauma or bad home life.

There's a distinct possibility the man's life was fine before all of this. The only mention of his parents comes when Nadia (Buckso Dhillon-Woolley), the social worker who's handling his probational release from prison, asks him about any family he might be able to contact. His parents are alive, Mike points out, but their relationship is "complicated." Dillane's mildly guilty tone gives us the impression that the real complication might be Mike himself.

Wisely, the film doesn't judge Mike, but that's not to say it sympathizes with him, either. It simply understands this man, wants us to see him for his potential, and knows that something inside of him is keeping him from reaching it. The story is a tragedy, simply because it is difficult to watch this man keep getting some close to some comprehension of himself and his problems—only for him to instinctually avoid acknowledging all of that and actively sabotage whatever progress he has made. There's no catharsis to be found at the end this of tale, though, and that might be, as cynical and hopeless as it may sound, the most significant insight to be found here.

Most of the story follows Mike after his release from prison. He's set up with a room at a hostel. He interviews for and basically given a job cooking at a slightly rundown hotel, where the owner (played by Amr Waked) asks for the truth of why Mike ended up in prison and accepts Mike's honesty as enough reason to hire him. Mike had been sober for the seven months he was in prison, and he stays that way for a while, even talking to Nadia about his big plans of opening a chauffeuring business once his probation is complete.

Nothing specific changes Mike's attitude and behavior here. We can't, in other words, point at a singular event as a turning point, but Dickinson's script ensures that we do notice little things. He gets angry easily, such as when a customer complains about his meal or as he spends more time with a later co-worker named Andrea (Megan Northam). He starts to avoid taking responsibility for his life, showing up late to work. He evades anything to do with talking about himself in any meaningful way, especially when the social worker arranges a meeting with Simon, which Mike initially sees as a goal to meet but actually meets with complete silence on his part.

Dickinson does include some dream-like touches here, such as a cave where Mike's calmer mind retreats to and a long-haired figure who haunts him when things are especially tough. They don't distract from the harsh reality of Urchin, to be sure, and indeed, the film's final shots, which exist in that surreal realm, heighten the feeling of being unable to escape from this situation.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products