Lollipop (15)
Directed by Daisy-May Hudson
★★★★

SET in east London, this is an incredibly powerful and deeply moving drama about a single mother’s fight to get her children back from care in Daisy-May Hudson’s impressive debut feature. 

The film examines how the system is broken. It shows Molly (Posy Sterling) being stonewalled by housing and social services officers as she faces the most insane catch-22: having served four months in prison she is released to find that her mother (TerriAnn Cousins), unable or unwilling to cope with them, has handed her kids, Ava (Tegan-Mia Stanley Rhoads), 11, and Leo (Luke Howitt), 5, to social services. And now the authorities have started care proceedings against Molly. She is informed by a housing officer that she has made herself intentionally homeless by going to jail and they can’t house her unless she has her children living with her, and she can’t get them back without a home. 

Her despair is palpable as she screams at the authorities to help her but they can’t and her display of emotion is held against her. The fact she escapes with Ava and Leo during a supervised visit in a fit of desperation makes her situation even more dire. 

Sterling (The Outrun) gives an extraordinary and terribly moving performance as a mother who finds herself powerless against the system as she does everything possible to fight back. She shows ferocious rage, depths of depression and heights of joy. A scene in the housing office where she has a complete breakdown screaming and crying for help is heartbreaking, as the staff look on without much sympathy. It is her best friend from college Amina (the remarkable Idil Ahmed in her first acting role) who comes to her aid. She is living in a homeless shelter with her daughter Mya (Aliyah Abdi who is Ahmed’s real-life daughter). It becomes the two women against the world as they join forces to find a solution. Unlike Molly’s alcoholic mum, their support and friendship is awe-inspiring.

Hudson, whose first film Half Way was a documentary about her family becoming homeless, avoids bleak working-class stereotypes and portraying the women as victims. Neither does she demonise the authorities, who are working with a broken system. That said, they demonstrate little compassion for Molly’s plight and offere little assistance. 

Hudson delivers a raw yet realistically grounded drama peppered with moments of fun and joy as Molly and Amina dance to garage music with Mya to let off steam. It ends on a hopeful note, as it shows the power of love.

In cinemas June 13.