When 94-year-old Eleanor’s (June Squibb) best friend of 70 years and room­mate Bessie (Rita Zohar) pass­es away, she decides it’s time for a change, and moves back to her native New York. In an attempt to get her out of the house and social­is­ing, her daugh­ter Lisa encour­ages Eleanor to attend class­es at their local Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, where she acci­den­tal­ly sits in on a group for Holo­caust sur­vivors. When they ask her to share her sto­ry, Eleanor (who is not a Holo­caust sur­vivor) pan­ics, and recounts Pol­ish-born Bessie’s sto­ry instead. She’s approached by jour­nal­ism stu­dent Nina (Erin Kel­li­man), who wants to pro­file her for a class project: chaos ensues.

The prob­lem with the premise of Scar­lett Johansson’s direc­to­r­i­al debut, Eleanor the Great, is that the sto­ry can ulti­mate­ly only end one way. From the sec­ond Eleanor tells her lie we know that she’s going to get found out (because this is a gen­tle com­e­dy dra­ma) and so it’s down to Tory Kamen’s script to pro­vide enough enter­tain­ment that the jour­ney to this inevitable des­ti­na­tion that it doesn’t feel like a slog. Unfor­tu­nate­ly the writ­ing in Eleanor the Great is less than stel­lar, with char­ac­ter paint­ed in broad strokes (Eleanor’s dis­in­ter­est­ed daugh­ter and grand­son; Nina’s worka­holic father) and pre­cious lit­tle done to breathe new life into the fish-out-of-water nar­ra­tive. The reli­ably charm­ing June Squibb does her best, but Eleanor isn’t a very inter­est­ing char­ac­ter, par­tial­ly because we don’t real­ly learn much about her beyond her grief regard­ing her friend Bessie’s death. Sim­i­lar­ly, Kel­li­man does her best to inject per­son­al­i­ty into Nina, but there’s very lit­tle to hold our inter­est, and Johans­son doesn’t prove her­self a par­tic­u­lar­ly tal­ent­ed direc­tor of per­for­mances. In fact, as the film goes on, it feels like Eleanor has less and less per­son­al­i­ty, hol­lowed out from the snarky, spiky old bid­dy we meet at the begin­ning of the film.

Sim­i­lar­ly dis­ap­point­ing is the look and feel of Eleanor the Great, which isn’t for a lack of tal­ent. Alice Rohrwach­er and Claire Denis’ reg­u­lar DoP Hélène Lou­vart shot the film, but it has all the per­son­al­i­ty of a New York tourism board advert, and Dustin O’Halloran’s score is sim­i­lar­ly devoid of per­son­al­i­ty. The images with­in the film are too gen­er­al and famil­iar – there is noth­ing new about what Johans­son is attempt­ing in her direc­to­r­i­al debut, which leads one to won­der why she both­ered mak­ing it at all. It’s not a dis­as­trous film – in fact, it’s quite inof­fen­sive. But this glar­ing nice­ness reflects a cru­cial lack of ambi­tion, and that seems more egre­gious than tak­ing a big swing. In a Cannes year that also brought us direc­to­r­i­al debuts from Kris­ten Stew­art and Har­ris Dick­in­son, it’s safe to say that Johans­son, while the most expe­ri­enced actor of the group, achieves the least with her leap to filmmaking.

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It’s easy to feel invis­i­ble in a city of 8.8 mil­lion peo­ple – even more so if you’re one of London’s esti­mat­ed 12,000 rough sleep­ers. Mike (Frank Dil­lane) seems to take it most­ly in his stride; he’s fig­ured out the best spot to hide his mea­gre pos­ses­sions (behind two com­mer­cial bins) and only seems mild­ly irri­tat­ed when he’s wok­en from his spot on the pave­ment by an over-zeal­ous street preach­er with a PA sys­tem. But to the legions of fast-mov­ing com­muters in East Lon­don, he might as well be a ghost. Even when Mike does receive a small ges­ture of kind­ness from a stranger, des­per­ate and dis­trust­ing as he is, his instinct is to do some­thing deeply cru­el in response. So sets in motion the plot of Har­ris Dickinson’s Urchin, a con­tem­po­rary tragedy that draws on the likes of Mike Leigh’s Naked and Agnés Varda’s Vagabond in its pierc­ing obser­va­tion of mod­ern life on the fringes.

Dil­lane (also bril­liant­ly nasty lat­er this year in Athi­na Rachel Tsangari’s Harvest)is a remark­able dis­cov­ery, total­ly at the heart of Dickinson’s script and lens. His pup­py dog eyes and shag­gy hair­cut project a cer­tain soft­ness; he’s boy­ish and charm­ing in fits and bursts, clear­ly street smart and charis­mat­ic, but knocked down enough times that get­ting back up is that lit­tle bit hard­er each time. Mike’s obvi­ous vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in jux­ta­po­si­tion with his occa­sion­al vio­lent out­bursts evokes De Niro’s Travis Bick­le with a dash of Kes, while Dickinson’s deci­sion to give us only a few details about the cir­cum­stances that have led to Mike’s per­ilous exis­tence encour­ages empa­thy with­out excep­tion. There’s no real need to know how or why Mike got here; the details are large­ly imma­te­r­i­al to his sit­u­a­tion. Yet Mike’s reluc­tance to con­front his past (and his per­son­al short­com­ings) hard­ly help; time and time again, it’s Mike who trips him­self up just as the ground ahead seems sure. His ten­den­cy to glaze over his own sad­ness or frus­tra­tion with a placid grin is only effec­tive for so long.

If a sto­ry about an unhoused young man try­ing to pick his way through the hellscape of the mod­ern cap­i­tal doesn’t sound very sun­ny, it’s true that there’s some­thing deeply melan­choly about the exis­tence Mike is bare­ly eking out, and his iso­la­tion is pal­pa­ble and raw. But Dick­in­son – a tal­ent­ed comedic force on-screen in his own right – finds light­ness there too, and a com­bi­na­tion of sharp dia­logue and excel­lent deliv­ery from Dil­lane et al (includ­ing Dick­in­son him­self as Mike’s some­time mate Nathan) keep the audi­ence on their toes. Urchin is nev­er relent­less­ly grim, even if it finds enough bleak moments that Leigh com­par­isons are well-earned. Nor is this a pos­tur­ing ​‘issue’ movie, peer­ing down at London’s rough sleep­ers with a patro­n­is­ing pat on the shoul­der. There’s a clear under­stand­ing of the forces that lead peo­ple to addic­tion and home­less­ness, and how with­out prop­er infra­struc­ture and sup­port, willpow­er can’t sus­tain recov­ery alone. Dick­in­son affords more ten­der­ness to his pro­tag­o­nist than Lon­don is will­ing to, but it’s also clear Mike’s no angel (nor should he have to be to earn our empa­thy). Instead he’s famil­iar in his speci­fici­ty, emblem­at­ic of thou­sands slip­ping through the cracks as those in pow­er show more and more con­tempt for the most vulnerable.

As for Har­ris Dick­in­son, it’s only mild­ly galling to see how bloody good he is at every­thing he turns his mind to, here on writ­ing, direct­ing, pro­duc­ing (through his pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny Devi­sio with Archie Pearch) and sup­port­ing actor duties, yet deft­ly refut­ing any van­i­ty project alle­ga­tions by virtue of cre­at­ing a phe­nom­e­nal­ly impres­sive debut feature.

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The trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of water lies at the heart of Amer­i­can writer Lidia Yuknavitch’s mem­oir, informed by her ado­les­cent dreams of swim­ming being her escape from an abu­sive child­hood home. The Chronol­o­gy of Water tracks the tides of her life as she bat­tles addic­tion, abuse, and the lin­ger­ing scars from a sex­u­al­ly vio­lent upbring­ing. It’s heavy mate­r­i­al, and Yukanvitch’s stylised prose doesn’t nat­u­ral­ly lend itself to adap­ta­tion, but it’s easy to see why her sto­ry appealed to Kris­ten Stew­art for her direc­to­r­i­al debut. Yuknavitch’s defi­ant spir­it seems to mir­ror Stewart’s own kick­ing back against Hol­ly­wood for its repeat­ed attempts to box her in.

Imo­gen Poots car­ries the weight of the film as Lidia, from a wide-eyed teenag­er claw­ing out from under her father’s thumb to a cel­e­brat­ed writer and Eng­lish teacher, through tur­bu­lent romances, per­son­al crises and her con­tin­ued reck­on­ing with the des­per­ate sad­ness of her child­hood. Water – in lakes, pools, bath­tubs and tears – offers a source of phys­i­cal and metaphor­i­cal cleans­ing (in the open­ing scene we see bright red blood swirl down a show­er drain while Lidia cries in pain) and Stew­art adopts the same five chap­ter struc­ture as her source mate­r­i­al: Hold­ing Breath, Under Blue, The Wet, Resus­ci­ta­tions and The Oth­er Side of Drown­ing. There’s a loose time­line in place, though the nar­ra­tive slips and slides through Lidia’s mem­o­ries, frag­ment­ed and shift­ing, as she tries to find order in chaos.

Stewart’s direc­to­r­i­al debut doesn’t lack ambi­tion; the opaque­ness of the time­line and grainy, 16mm empha­sise the dream­like nature of Yuknavitch’s prose, though the film’s ten­den­cy to repeat images becomes a lit­tle tir­ing. The con­tin­u­al noise and nar­ra­tion also cre­ate a claus­tro­pho­bic feel­ing that threat­ens to over­whelm the nar­ra­tive, with lit­tle room giv­en for the weight of Lidia’s words to breathe. If the intent is to cre­ate a film as sti­fling and chaot­ic as Yuknavitch’s sto­ry this is achieved, but the film sags under the weight of its many artis­tic flourishes.

But there’s a potent earnest­ness about The Chronol­o­gy of Water – Stew­art shows a deep empa­thy for her sub­ject, and Yuknavitch’s mem­oir is trans­formed with an unapolo­getic con­fi­dence. Sex, vio­lence, fear and joy: Lidia feels it all, and feels it all deeply. Her trans­for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence work­ing with Ken Kesey (Jim Belushi) is par­tic­u­lar­ly ten­der; it’s here she finds con­fi­dence in her writ­ing, while lat­er, explor­ing her sex­u­al­i­ty on her own terms final­ly allows Lidia the free­dom her father tried des­per­ate­ly to deny. It’s an imper­fect but com­pelling first fea­ture, bol­stered by Poots’ com­mit­ted per­for­mance, even with the dis­tract­ing bells and whis­tles of a film­mak­er try­ing things out for the first time. But if this is a state­ment of intent about Stewart’s film­mak­ing future, there might be a tru­ly great film in her yet.

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