‘Urchin’ Review: Harris Dickinson’s Feature Debut Is Earnest Yet Unsteady [Cannes]

Being unhoused is often associated with the idea of roughness: rough sleeping, having it rough, going through a rough patch. Yet, Frank Dillane’s Mike embodies a contrasting elegance. His delicate limbs tuck tightly against a slender frame when night comes, his contained body quietly lying atop a makeshift bed wrangled with flat cardboard boxes and a thin layer of fabric. This beautiful, angular man is the central character in Harris Dickinson’s feature debut “Urchin,” which takes its name from a largely retired term assigned to mostly unhoused, poor young children dressed in dirty rags. 

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From Sherlock Holmes to Oliver Twist, urchins have long populated British storytelling, and Dickinson’s contribution to the trope first finds Mike waking up to the loud words of a street preacher, singing the praises of a God he knows not to be all that merciful.

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