Charlotte Regan’s Scrapper follows a formula, what makes this film good is how it finds it wiggle room. The formula is as follows – two strangers meet, hate each other, get used to each other, and separate. Most films play with whether or not that separation lasts. The first stranger is Georgie (Lola Campbell), who is, with her best friend Ali (Alin Uzun), mourning the loss of her mother. They deal with that loss by playing around like twelve year old kids do. The film adds further disequilibrium by as it introduces the second stranger – Georgie’s dad Jason (Harris Dickinson), who breaks into her home.

As someone who is older than Jason, I find myself thinking what I would do in his situation. I see myself wanting my theoretical child to love me back, which makes his tough love approach feel somehow refreshing on screen. If anything, he’s matching Georgie’s energy, a character in denial when it comes to her situation. She claims to be in the third or fourth stage of grief but she’s still in the first. Ali’s presence is equally commendable in this dynamic. He’s more positive, although more naïve, than the two of them but not without giving Georgie the occasional and necessary reality check.

It’s the job of most films to reflect its protagonist’s emotional state, and Scrapper matches Georgie’s highs and lows and even goes beyond that, adding a mature foresight to the film. The film uses the occasional mockumentary elements. In these scenes, the camera asks some of the minor characters what they think of her and, eventually, how Jason influences her. It gives these characters an aesthetic that’s cartoony enough without overdoing that point. One standout is Freya Allen as Leyla, leading a pack of girly girls who have ambivalent feelings towards Georgie. I also commend its choice of which council estate housing to use for its location.

Many films have depicted such housing but choosing these specific ones make Scrapper feel like proletarian Paddington. On top of this, it incorporates some magic realist elements. Those pop up at the one time Georgie goes to a room in her rental home that she padlocks,. That room, by the cay, contains a shrine for her mother. The film uses simple visual effects to make that shrine into the steampunk-y entity in her imagination. But at this point, it can throw anything at the screen and it will work. Because it’s a room with a padlock, Jason doesn’t have access to it. But whether or not he’ll break his way in is a test as to whether or not he wants to be Georgie’s father.

Torontonian cinephiles can watch Scrapper at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.