Latest news with #OnFalling
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Urchin' Review: Harris Dickinson's Fine Directorial Debut Bridges Social Realism and Surrealism
You can learn a lot about an actor when they make their directorial debut. For better or worse, it reveals how they see themselves as an artist, sometimes far removed the image they've cultivated on screen. In the case of Harris Dickinson, however, his first venture behind the camera is fully consistent with his young but impressive acting career. The star who has largely eschewed profitable franchise pap for unusual independent and arthouse assignments shows through in 'Urchin,' a jagged, perceptive slice of life from London's grimier sidewalks, addressing a nationwide homelessness crisis with unassuming care and candor. Centered on a single young man ricocheting between prison, hostels and the streets, the film makes no claims to represent an entire disenfranchised demographic, but there's resonant human texture and political feeling in its close-up individual portrait. Now 28 years old, Dickinson joins an emerging generation of British filmmakers who came of age against the U.K. government's punishing austerity program of the 2010s onward, with its accompanying reduction in welfare and social services, and aren't inclined toward a forgiving view. It's a group arguably more inclined than their immediate elders to take the mantle of 88-year-old Ken Loach, still by some margin British cinema's preeminent name in social-realist protest cinema. Like Laura Carreira's recent, superb 'On Falling,' 'Urchin' proudly bears the influence of Loach's unfussy observational gaze and plainspoken frustration with the world under view — so it's somewhat fitting that the film should premiere at Cannes, the veteran auteur's regular stomping ground, in the Un Certain Regard section. Indie distributors should take an interest, and not just on the basis of the director's celebrity. More from Variety 'Slauson Rec' Review: A Documentary About Shia LaBeouf's Acting Class - and His Anger Issues - Is More Appalling Than Fascinating Wes Anderson Mocks Trump's Movie Tariffs at Cannes: 'Can You Hold Up the Movie in Customs? It Doesn't Ship That Way' Wes Anderson Powers Satyajit Ray's 'Aranyer Din Ratri' Rescue for Cannes Classics Where 'Urchin' diverges from the old-school Loachian playbook is in its few passages of tumbling surrealism, entering the addled freefall mindset of protagonist Mike (Frank Dillane) via kaleidoscopic digital imagery and dreamily incongruous visions — a gaping forest cave, a hushed gothic abbey — that stand in stark contrast to the film's rough-and-ready east London milieu. These unexpected flourishes may divide viewers, though they're not merely a decorative affectation, instead connoting the psychological lapses and blackouts that keep Mike on the same desperate rotation around society's fringes. Though Dickinson himself takes a minor role as a fellow street denizen and frenemy of Mike's — apparently only after another actor fell through for the part — he exercises commendable humility in handing the lead role to Dillane, not to mention a canny eye for casting. The 'Harry Potter' and 'Fear the Walking Dead' alum, son of actor Stephen, is revelatory in his most substantial big-screen role to date, imbuing Mike with both the kind of wily charisma that makes people want to rescue him, and a self-destructive volatility that keeps repelling such efforts. We see both of these in action in an extended early scene that sees him disarm kindly middle-class professional Simon, a rare passerby who talks to him as a relative equal, and offers to buy him lunch. Mid-conversation, Mike abruptly assaults him and steals his wallet. The attack lands him behind bars, not for the first time, with his seven-month jail stint an interstice covered by the first of Dickinson's vertiginous reality-break sequences. He emerges from it sober and conscientious, determined to finally stay clean as he takes a job as a commis chef in a low-end hotel, and a hostel room secured by brisk, no-nonsense social worker Nadia (Shonagh Marie) — who bluntly reminds him that as an able-bodied white man with a criminal record and a history of violence, he is not the system's top priority. For a time, Mike holds it together, dutifully listening to platitudinous self-help tapes and befriending some cheery co-workers at the hotel — cue a tipsy karaoke performance of the optimistically titled Atomic Kitten hit 'Whole Again.' But his more erratic impulses eventually get the better of him, vaulting him into alternative employment as a litter collector, and an initially benign relationship with carefree immigrant drifter Andrea (Megan Northam) that sours when she inadvertently pulls him off the wagon with a dose (and then another, and another) of ketamine. Ably navigating back-and-forth tonal shifts between hopeful everyday comedy and stomach-knotting anxiety, Dickinson's script resists overly tidy shaping, accepting one man's unreliable id as its primary motor — toward an ending that may seem unresolved, but is honest about the snakes-and-ladders trajectory faced by many in Mike's position as support networks steadily desert them. Propulsively and often sunnily shot by DP Josée Deshaies ('Passages') and edited by Rafael Torres Calderón with an efficiency that still allows for the lax diversions and conversations of an unmoored, unhurried existence, 'Urchin' hints gently throughout at the brighter life that could await Mike if he ever climbs all the way out of the abyss. Still, Dickinson's starkly effective debut makes no false promises. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
BBC News
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
New film telling the story of the struggles of migrant workers
Loneliness and the precarious work prospects of immigrant workers are themes explored in a new film written and directed by Scottish-based film maker Laura Carreira. In 'On Falling', her first feature film, she highlights the isolation and insecurity that comes with some working in a huge warehouse, scanning items in a job dictated by the bleep of a machine, knowing your productivity is being constantly when work is finished, you go home to your shared accommodation, where you sit on your own eating cheap meals as that is all you can afford, and spend much of your time 'doom scrolling' on social is the life of Aurora, a character in the film 'On Falling'. A timid and lonely female migrant, she works as a 'picker' in a Scottish film illustrates the precariousness of 'gig work' and the importance of human connection. "We follow her in a week where she's struggling to make ends meet and also struggling with loneliness and alienation," said Ms Carreira. "I started reading a lot about the gig economy and I discovered the job of a picker," said Ms Carreira"When companies talk about efficiency and how quickly a parcel gets to you, I was expecting it to come from technology, but actually it's someone rushing around a warehouse, getting the item as fast as they can and being told to the second how long they have to get there. "Immediately I thought - there is a film here." Having moved to Scotland at the young age of 18 to study film in Edinburgh, Ms Carreira says that gave her the perspective to tell the story from the viewpoint of an immigrant."I started interviewing pickers and realised a lot are economic migrants. I realised I could tell this story and I could tell it through a Portuguese female character as well. 'Loneliness and exploitation' "Those first years were hard, you know? You don't have any social ties to the country and you are trying to belong. You experience the loneliness and the exploitation closer to your skin because when you don't have those ties you have less security and less protections. "But I really think that what she's going through is pretty universal, anyone who works can probably relate to elements of what Aurora is going through."'On Falling' had its preview at the London Film Festival last is being shown at the Watershed cinema in Bristol until 20 March, in a partnership with the Glasgow Film Festival, before being released at 54 more cinemas across the UK. "I think it is part of the immigrant's experience to go into another country looking for a better life and it might not be there," Ms Carreira said."Of course sometimes you do find your way and you find a sense of belonging. And I think that can be a really positive experience when you come from another country, you're speaking a different language, and after so many years you're part of it."Despite the struggles of Aurora in the film, Ms Carreira said she wanted to bring a more positive issue to light."Even though the film can be dark at points, for me it was really important to preserve the kindness of others," she said."I think sometimes we find ourselves in these strange positions, with this entire idea that we're out there competing against each other. "But in reality, I think people really care for each other and as migrant that's a perspective that you get, and I wanted to bring that into the film."
The Guardian
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘You're always on edge – it has consequences': the extraordinary drama about working in an Amazon-style warehouse
A lonely woman trudges the aisles of a cavernous warehouse, accompanied by the accusatory bleeps of the scanner that directs her every move. She picks objects off the shelves that serve other people's needs – a baby doll, a vibrator, a rope washing line – as her own are slowly obliterated. Laura Carreira's acclaimed debut feature, On Falling, charts the exhausting and repetitive working week of an e-commerce employee. It is a testament to her skill as a director that she injects it with the pace, tension and jeopardy of a thriller. 'That vulnerability you experience when you have a precarious job, when you're always on edge and there's so little security – it has consequences,' says the Portuguese-born, Edinburgh-based film-maker. 'We talk about the financial vulnerability, but very often we don't think about what the cost is existentially.' In On Falling, the migrant heroine Aurora, played by Portuguese actor Joana Santos, navigates the soul-destroying repercussions of the gig economy. With no cash to spend on activities that might invite human connection, she spends her spare time on her phone, scrolling through other, sunnier lives, a habit both self-harming and self-soothing. When disaster strikes and the phone is accidentally smashed, the £99 repair cost leaves her unable to pay the electricity bill in her cramped, shared digs and precipitates a shameful unravelling. Carreira based her script on interviews with people working locally at what e-commerce companies such as Amazon would coyly describe as a fulfilment centre. 'They were expecting the job to be physically demanding, but didn't realise how psychologically demanding it would be,' she says. 'Then, when they get home, they are too tired to build a life outside work. After a few months of living that way, with few financial securities, people find the horizon a little darker.' On Falling is produced by Ken Loach's Sixteen Films, but Carreira brings intimacy and nuance to the often strident social-realist tradition. Her acute observations of the grinding infantilisation of the job are mostly taken from her interviews. When Aurora speedily meets her picking target, she is invited to choose a chocolate bar from a box on the desk of a manager who barely makes eye contact. Meanwhile, she is chided for being disorganised when requesting a day off with insufficient notice, and the company's struggling employees are encouraged to donate to an ecological charity that apparently matches corporate values. 'Pickers I spoke to noticed these microaggressions with incredible accuracy,' Carreira says. The honest portrayal of work on screen – what it pays, what it costs us and how we let it define us – is a longtime 'obsession' for Carreira. As an 18-year-old, newly arrived in Edinburgh to study film and working to support herself, she didn't recognise her contemporaries, who could head off on a road trip without bargaining their annual leave entitlement first. Her early award-winning fiction shorts followed characters in similarly precarious jobs. 'Films often avoid looking at work and I understand that, dramatically, it's hard to film – especially work that tends to be repetitive. But to me, that was a challenge.' There's one unedited shot in the film, she explains, that follows Aurora working in real time: 'It feels long and I'm thinking, 'That's two minutes – this person is doing this 10 hours a day.'' Carreira, who is 30, suggests that her generation is beginning to view work differently. 'For us, it's not the case that you work hard and get the rewards – half of us are living pay cheque to pay cheque. And when your free time is just spent preparing for the next working day, your experience becomes impoverished.' But Carreira is adamant that On Falling should not simply prompt viewers to boycott e-commerce sites. Indeed, she makes plain in the film that some of the pickers are customers too: 'They struggle to have time outside work to make the purchases they need. So it's hard for the takeaway of the film to be a prescription on what you should do as a consumer. That's another trap we can fall into – blaming what we're going through on our consumer choices.' The film doesn't offer any clues to why this particular woman has ended up working in the warehouse. Carreira says she did this consciously: 'We're getting to know this character during one week and many, many different backgrounds could have led her to this position.' It remains a mystery whether Aurora has supportive family back in Portugal who could help her, but we see that her shame becomes numbing as her meals dwindle to a stale cheese sandwich or a stolen packet of crisps. 'Sometimes when you are struggling,' says Carreira, 'you actually isolate yourself more, especially as a migrant, when there's the expectation that you will build a better life.' But the absence of a tragic backstory is another challenge to the viewer – we can't explain away Aurora's poverty and isolation as consequent on some explicit circumstance. 'It means we don't have anyone to blame,' Carreira adds. In earlier drafts of the script, Aurora encountered more conflict with her flatmates and co-workers, she says, but stripping it out made the story stronger and more realistic. Carreira is too sophisticated a film-maker to bludgeon her audience into despair. Throughout the film are instances of vivid sweetness: a shared joke with a co-worker and a spark of romance across the canteen table; Aurora's practical tenderness towards a drunken stranger; a no-strings inclusion in her gregarious – and comfortably self-employed – flatmate's night out. At these moments Santos's face is lit from within and we catch a glimpse of the big life Aurora is capable of living. The film crew called these moments 'the islands of care', Carreira says. 'Something I really believe in, and what I have encountered in life, is that people are kind and really want to care for each other. But the way we're living isn't providing enough opportunities to do that in a meaningful way. It's these little moments that show our true intentions, and it's easy to forget that and just blame each other for what we're going through – when deep inside we're there for each other. It would be good if we lived in an economic system that reflected that more regularly.' On Falling is in UK cinemas from 7 March
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Erin Brockovich and Twiggy doc headline Vue Glasgow's Women's Day event
A cinema in the city centre is celebrating International Women's Day by screening six films created by and starring women. The event by Vue Glasgow St Enoch, taking place on Saturday, March 8, will feature a mix of past and present films. For more information, go to (Image: Supplied) The award-winning legal drama, Erin Brockovich, will return to the big screen to mark its 25th anniversary. The film, starring Julia Roberts, follows the true story of an unemployed single mother who becomes a legal assistant and takes on a California power company accused of polluting a city's water supply. A documentary on one of the UK's most iconic models, Twiggy, will also be shown. Directed by Sadie Frost, the film explores the fashion superstar's upbringing, career, and relationships. (Image: Supplied) This is the first time Twiggy has told her life story first-hand and features contributions from Charlotte Tilbury, Joanna Lumley, Dustin Hoffman, and Paul McCartney. On Falling, a film by director and writer Laura Carreira, will also be screened. The film tells the story of Aurora, a Portuguese worker in a Scottish warehouse, as she navigates loneliness and alienation in an algorithm-driven gig economy. Recent hits Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy and the award-winning horror film The Substance will also be shown over the weekend. Rachel Bland, senior screen content manager at Vue, said: "Vue prides itself on showcasing a diverse range of content on the big screen and we champion film created and starring inspiring women every day of the year. "We're pleased to be shining a light on these incredible stories for International Women's Day."
