The past couple of years have seen an influx of women filmmakers bringing timely, working-class stories to the big screen with lived reverence and fresh talent, from Rocks to Scrapper to Bird. The latest addition to this new social realist niche is Lollipop, a gut-punching debut from writer-director Daisy-May Hudson. The film follows Molly (Posy Sterling), a young mother released from jail but placed in a different prison when she tries to reunite with her children, who are being held in foster care. She finds herself in a hellish Catch-22: she can’t gain custody of her children without a roof over her head, but she can’t get a house via state assistance because her kids don’t live with her.

Hudson’s sharp film, inspired by her own experiences, passionately takes aim at the pitfalls and paradoxes of the social care system. After painfully short supervised visits with her children and missing out on key moments of their growth, Molly reaches a breaking point. Hudson isolates Molly when her conscientious smile cracks as, off-screen, the voices of social workers dictate that her children will remain in foster care until she has sorted herself out. Cinematographer Jaime Ackroyd frames Molly through the worker’s legs, like the bars of a cell. Sterling’s restrained performance transforms into something explosive; anger crumbles into devastation as the system repeatedly and harshly fails her. “You need to do more for me,” she begs, only to be met with: “There’s nothing more I can do.”

Though some of the film’s most devastating moments occur inside the council office, it’s also where Molly reunites with her greatest supporter, college friend Amina (Idil Ahmed), who is living in a hostel for homeless families. Both women are soldiers fighting with a fierce love for their children. Their sisterhood interrupts the solemn tone as they find pockets of joy amid the devastation, gossiping in bed and dancing to UK garage music.

These moments highlight the distinct absence of men in Lollipop, bar Molly’s 5-year-old son Leo (Luke Howitt). The companionship of other women is the foundation of Molly’s life, underscored by the challenging relationships with the all-women care workers or her overbearing but inattentive mother, Sylvie (TerriAnn Cousins).

The impressive nature of the performers is thanks to casting director Lucy Pardee, who recognised Sterling’s powerhouse leading potential but also discovered the brilliance of Tegan-Mia Stanley Rhoads. The latter, who plays Molly’s 11-year-old daughter Ava, takes centre stage when she tearfully pleads with her mother to obey the rules to avoid getting in more trouble. But Molly is desperate. The mother-daughter back-and-forths are sensitively penned and downright heart-wrenching to witness. It’s a stark reminder of the pain caused by a system that slashes welfare spending and demands a person to jump through hoops with their legs tied. Hudson’s film makes room to acknowledge that this is a family affair. Molly is at the epicentre, but the reverberations impact everyone around her.

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Death seems to be an omni­scient spec­tre and peren­ni­al fas­ci­na­tion for promis­ing film­mak­er Chie Hayakawa. In her debut Plan 75, Japan’s elder­ly are encour­aged to sign up for a euthani­sa­tion pro­gramme in an attempt to curb the country’s aging pop­u­la­tion. Dying is sold and com­mod­i­fied, and is as nor­malised as gro­ceries. Though not remote­ly as dystopi­an, there’s a through­line to Hayakawa’s fol­low-up in its rela­tion­ship with mor­tal­i­ty: that death has become so embed­ded in every­day life that it’s almost unremarkable.

For 11-year-old Fuki (Yui Suzu­ki), she’s lack­ing the road map for grief when time is run­ning out for her ter­mi­nal­ly ill father (a lit­tle-seen but always dev­as­tat­ing Lily Franky). Her moth­er (Hikari Ishi­da) is so occu­pied with her busy career dur­ing 1980s Japan’s eco­nom­ic boom that she approach­es funer­al arrange­ments with the casu­al­ness of a busi­ness call. In one qui­et­ly dev­as­tat­ing scene, Fuki’s father turns on the light of a clos­et to see mourn­ing clothes hang­ing by the door­way. It’s as if his fam­i­ly is already so pre­pared for his immi­nent pass­ing that he’s already gone.

Cru­cial­ly, Renoir is framed through Fuki’s per­spec­tive, car­ried by the rev­e­la­to­ry new­com­er Suzu­ki. Grief is a dif­fi­cult feel­ing to process, espe­cial­ly for a young child, and with­out any­one to lean on, she retreats to her own fan­tasies. Dreams col­lide with real­i­ty so fre­quent­ly that it’s hard to parse what’s real in Fuki’s world – and Hayakawa’s restrained mode of film­mak­ing doesn’t dif­fer­en­ti­ate between the two either. Inspired by a magi­cian on TV, Fuki even begins test­ing her abil­i­ties in telepa­thy and hyp­no­tism: per­haps mag­ic can make sense of her situation.

Fuki’s own feel­ings about death seem almost apa­thet­ic – her teacher alerts her moth­er that she’s writ­ten an essay titled ​“I Want to be an Orphan” – but even then, she doesn’t want to expe­ri­ence it alone. Left to her own devices almost every­day, Fuki search­es for con­nec­tion in ways that swing from inno­cent to dan­ger­ous. She looks to class­mates, neigh­bours, and art from the tit­u­lar French impres­sion­ist. Lat­er, she strikes up a con­ver­sa­tion with a groomer over a dat­ing phone line. Hayakawa treats it all with such a del­i­cate hand that it can verge on becom­ing too light a touch. The film’s heavy ideas can feel like they’re not being giv­en the weight they need, always keep­ing the emo­tion at a distance.

Still, few films have depict­ed com­ing of age quite like this. The first pro­mo­tion­al stills released in the lead-up to Cannes are a clever mis­di­rect: one fea­tures Fuki smil­ing and danc­ing against a clear blue sky, and you’d be for­giv­en for believ­ing you’re in for a sweet jour­ney of self dis­cov­ery. Renoir does retain that sum­mery bright colour palette, cre­at­ing a star­tling con­trast to the core dark­ness that per­me­ates Fuki’s iso­la­tion. It’s a strange and often­times bru­tal por­trait of a sin­gu­lar­ly curi­ous child, left to wres­tle with grief in her imag­i­na­tion when real life can’t pro­vide the answers.

To keep cel­e­brat­ing the craft of film, we have to rely on the sup­port of our mem­bers. Join Club LWLies today and receive access to a host of benefits.