Daisy-May Hudson’s tearjerking family drama is one of the best debut films in recent years
In debut writer-director Daisy-May Hudson’s tearjerking family drama Lollipop, the filmmaker borrows loosely from her own mother’s experience and tells a harrowing but ultimately hopeful story of resilience and female solidarity.
Our central character, Molly (an excellent Posy Sterling), has been newly released from prison after a four-month stretch that has separated her from her young children. It’s her first and most vital task to be reunited with them, but Ava (Tegan-Mia Stanley Rhoads) and little Leo (Luke Howitt) have been shunted into the care system after a care agreement with Molly’s unstable mother fell through during the sentence.
Molly is in a Catch-22. She has lost her housing due to her prison sentence, and now must have a home in order to get her kids back. In spite of the so-called support of social workers and homelessness charities, she keeps hitting walls; as a young, homeless single mother with a criminal record, her parenting skills are called into question again and again by a heartbreakingly frustrating “computer says no” mentality.
By chance, Molly runs into Aminah (Idil Ahmed), a kind old college friend who is in different, but no less dire, straits. After some brief pretense around how “well” they’re doing, the pair come clean about their struggles, reuniting as friends in a very different time in their lives.
As Molly, Sterling has a perfect combination of steely reserve and melting vulnerability, with a face made for the cinema screen. Each time her chin wobbles with tears or she breaks into a dimpled, idiosyncratic smile, you feel it in your guts.
Lollipop does run into some of the problems of the first-time narrative filmmaker. There’s a touch of by-the-numbers contrivance; the film is often so straining to show you the crushing difficulty of the system that the well-meaning social workers are rendered flat; and in its rush to reiterate Molly’s tender-hearted love for her kids, it sometimes turns her into too much of a martyr.
But these are minor problems for a film that shows both restraint and emotional intelligence. Just look into the drawn, unsmiling face of Molly’s freckled pre-teen daughter when she finally, finally ends up in something resembling a family home. It’s not all roses and sunshine; it’s another change, another chance for things to go wrong, another promise she can’t be sure of.
That this remains unspoken and beneath the surface of the final moments of the film shows Hudson is adept at capturing complex emotional realities – her lingering close-ups on her actor’s faces; the gentleness with which she approaches them as an artist. And perhaps, due to her own experience, she is the perfect person to tell this story. Her 2015 documentary, The Half Way, tells the story of her, her sister, and her mother’s descent into homelessness.
The fact is that the restrictions and judgements around single motherhood are only compounded by the harsh reality of class and privilege. Surrounded by more bureaucratic red tape than common-sense empathy, Molly often struggles – but through grit and determination, she reaches a foothold for her family that promises a better future. I’m fascinated to see what Daisy-May Hudson will take on next – her Loach-esque eye for social realism and her skill with actors is promising indeed.
