Charlotte Regan, UK 2023

"It takes a village to raise a child," is flashed on the screen at the beginning of the film, only for a pencil to cross it out and scrawl: "I can raise myself thanks."

That pencil belongs to spunky twelve-year-old Georgie (a sassy Lola Campbell) who is living on her own in a neighborhood of pastel candy-colored council flats in East London. Georgie is outsmarting inept social services into believing her uncle, Winston Churchill, is caring for her after the recent death of her single mother. Georgie starts the day staging the flat to look exactly like her mother had left it, next crossing out “bargaining,” the third stage of grief, off her list, then joining best friend Ali (Alin Uzun) to go steal bicycles in broad daylight. Georgie is not just a petty criminal for thrills, she is hungry.

Things are going surprisingly well for feisty, self-sufficient Georgie. Suddenly a stranger shows up, her long lost father Jason (Harris Dickinson, completely unrecognizable from TRIANAGLE OF SADNESS), almost a kid himself, who has been living and partying, coiffed with frosted blond tips in Ibiza. There is no way Georgie wants him around. He had abandoned her and her beloved mother when she was a baby. But wait, Ali really likes Jason, and Jason certainly has practical tips like scraping the serial numbers off bikes before re-painting and flogging them. Georgie and Jason warily suss each other out, blissfully unaware they are mirror images in looks, words, and deeds. A train trip to the countryside where they clown around creating dramatic dialogue for complete strangers is hilarious to watch.

There are some quirky touches in the film: Georgie’s house spiders’ comments popping up in speech bubbles on a screen and mock documentary interruptions from teachers, social workers, and neighbor children. Yet writer-director Charlotte Regan, aged only twenty-nine herself, has created a brilliant and buoying film, with fabulous actors. It is a film that both strikes a raw nerve and tickles the funny bone while stridently embracing the exuberance of Georgie’s life. (PF)