URCHIN

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Recently I caught a snippet of an American comic’s stand up: he recalls telling a joke about a homeless man and being reprimanded by a member of the audience who said, “That word is disrespectful: the term is ‘unhoused’, if you don’t mind.  I have a friend who is unhoused.”  And the comic says to him, “Well… not that good of a friend….”

Sometimes a film lands on your doorstep (if you are lucky enough to have one…) at precisely the right time, at a moment when its message is dramatically amplified and expanded by one’s personal life or by goings on in the real world.  And such is the case with Harris Dickinson’s directorial debut, URCHIN.

Michael (Frank Dillane, a wonderful, compelling, hugely charismatic actor who was also remarkable in JOAN, a show which I caught on a plane and which seemed to go entirely under the radar…) is a homeless addict with a disinterested family (“I was adopted, so it’s complicated…”) and the type of “friends” who will readily steal from him if they are given half a chance.  And Michael’s hardly perfect, capitulating to his most base need to survive, resorting to violence and finding himself in prison for a stint on a robbery charge, an opportunity for a routine, a roof over his head, regular meals and a shower or two.  Dickinson makes a meal of the showers, a rich metaphor for rehabilitation, for rebirth, a washing away of sins and an opportunity for restoration (and I think the success of the heightened elements of URCHIN and the various tropes tell us Dickinson is truly an artist… I mean, these artsy-fartsy choices are definitely pretentious enough… 🙄).

We don’t know Michael’s name until about an hour into the film, because… well, do you think to ask the names of the homeless people you see on the street (I don’t really understand the “unhoused” terminology so am sticking with homeless, hopefully to no offence…)?  And, if you do, are they likely to give you their real one?  We are trained to lower our eyes and mind our own business, and I think we do this out of fear (although I did not do this with Sunny, an addict who begs for money on my local high street, and whose health and state of mind I have seen deteriorate over the last couple of years, and who recently asked after I said I had no money on me at all, “What about a hug, then?” Reader.  I hugged her.  Probs not the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but… we both needed it, tbh…🤗).  The fear of which I speak is not fear of the homeless person, but of the ever-present possibility of our own homelessness or that of a loved one.  Almost 50% of UK workers are living paycheck to paycheck with no savings, entirely running out of money at the end of the month.  And I am one of them.

We are living at a time when the divide between rich and poor has never been greater and, particularly, property prices are entirely out of control.  In the London Borough of Camden, where I live… for the moment… the average price of a flat or house is £920,000 (per ONS, although Rightmove puts the figure at £1,194,221) and the average rent is £2,793 per month or £33,516 per year, so a pre-taxation value of about £40,000 (i.e. the amount you’d have to earn to have £33,516 net), plus one has to pay Council Tax and utilities.  Income-wise, the average salary is £45,000 pa.  Do the maths and see where Camden property prices get you… yep, you too would be living on the streets.

If anyone knows of any policy-makers looking into our housing crisis, I have a couple of ideas: (i) I think renters should share proportionately in their home’s increase in value during the period of their tenancy if/when the home sells at a future date; and (ii) something like the French system of viager whereby a younger person (usually) buys the home of an older person (usually), giving a lump sum plus monthly instalments (usually), but guarantees them life tenancy and only occupies the property after their death, meaning the younger person has her foot on a rung of the property ladder while the older person has a bit of retirement spending money and can see out their days in their own home.  There have got to be better ways to house our beleaguered, poverty-prone population than charging them extortionate rents, right?

Anywho, I digress…. URCHIN….  I have a brother who is not unlike Michael.  He had a rough childhood and struggles with mental health and addiction challenges (and, interestingly, he says he thinks the main reason he drinks is due to profound loneliness… I should hug him more, really…), and he has not had an address since he was about 15 years old.  And he, too, is intelligent and charismatic and funny… except when he’s really, really not.  The intersectionality of addiction, mental health and homelessness is nigh impossible to unpick, the three issues entirely intertwined and interdependent, each exacerbating the risks posed by the others.  You might meet a Michael or my brother and think their dire circumstances have been caused by their own laziness or entitlement or lifestyle choices, but I think it is much, much sadder and more desperate, entirely without their control and without the capacity of the State to offer effective solutions.   

For my part, I’ve just about held it together financially over the years, managing to get through illness, covid and divorce without ending up on the streets, but my insistence on working in the arts as a freelancer ups the risk factors considerably and I have recently made my rent by a whisker and a prayer.  I am (arguably over-) educated and I work hard, but I am regularly let down by people or projects who had promised payment which is not forthcoming, or who cancel paying work at the last minute, or, for me the biggest culprit, who stretch a three month timetable into a six month timetable without upping the fee and seem oblivious to the impact that has on someone’s bank balance.  I/we keep turning up for these exploitative gigs because we love the work, we want to be involved with the project and we are reverent of the artists and the artwork, putting it above all else, including ourselves, very often to our detriment.

At the recent Screen Summit, opening remarks from BFI CEO Ben Roberts included ‘inspiring’ stories of hard-won successes: the 14 year development period for Jonathan Glazer’s UNDER THE SKIN and the 16 year journey undertaken by producer Lesley Paterson to bring Edward Berger’s ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT to our screens.  Other similar tales include J.K. Rowling’s years of writing in a coffee shop to save on heating bills at home, or Ricky Gervais’ decision to take his redundancy fee at age 37 and give his all to a career as a comedian. But are these stories ‘inspiring’?  Really?  What exactly is inspiring about them?  How are producers surviving a 16 year development period, financially speaking?  I imagine many are not.  And what happens if you spend all your redundancy pennies on a fanciful dream and you’re left with nothing… destitute… homeless?  Surely for every J.K. Rowling there are a hundred thousand writers whose (potentially equally good and valid) output did not sell 600M copies worldwide?  What about the writers who put everything into writing a novel and then had nothing to show for it?  Hmmm.  Can I think of anyone?…. 🙄 Seriously, though, how can anyone afford to work in our sector and not consider the very real possibility of ending up on the streets?

On my way home after the film, I went to my local Sainsbury’s and, whaddayaknow, a young homeless man was begging for change on the street outside, lingering near the cash point.  Now, what did URCHIN teach me in terms of how to react?  Do I find some cash?  Offer to buy food?  Lower my eyes?  Like all great filmmakers, Dickinson (and I really think he might be one!) did not provide us with the answers: he doesn’t pretend to know the answers and neither will I.  All I know is that the way we are living is simply not sustainable.  And when it comes to the unhoused, I am being a very, very bad friend… and a fucking awful sister.  Something has got to change.  Urgently.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Now, how to pay my rent next week? Ideas welcome.🤔