Lollipop
It’s been almost a decade since Ken Loach released I, Daniel Blake, perhaps the most harrowing cinematic treatise of the UK’s welfare system. In the years that have followed, the most vulnerable continue to be systemically disenfranchised, and it’s a stark reality that Lollipop poignantly portrays.
Partly based on her own experiences, Daisy-May Hudson’s heartfelt drama follows single mother Molly (Posy Sterling) adjusting to her new normality after being released from prison. Due to her incarceration, she is left without both accommodation and her children, who have been put in foster care, and she cannot obtain one without the other. She finds solace in Amina (Idil Ahmed), a college friend living in a cramped hostel with her young daughter.
Occasionally gut-wrenching, the film humanises the complex and often traumatic social care experience. Molly is depicted with considerable empathy. She evidently adores her children, and goes to desperate lengths to get them back. However, Hudson, who also wrote the script, doesn’t portray Molly as a noble working-class cliché. She is flawed, particularly when it comes to her difficulties managing her anger, which is itself symptomatic of the iniquity she is made to endure.
Sterling is fantastic in conveying Molly’s unravelling mental state as she’s caught in the Kafkaesque nightmare of a punitive social care system. She and Ahmed have an effortless rapport that offers light in times of seeming perpetual gloom. Tegan-Mia Stanley Rhoads and Luke Howitt are also impressively understated in what are undoubtedly challenging roles for two young children.
It’s not all bleak, however. For all its pathos, Lollipop is a story of hope as much as it is of hardship. Through their friendship, Molly and Amina are able to help each other survive their most gruelling moments. Hudson does a great job of emphasising the importance of the collective in contrast to the callous individualism that led the two women to their respective difficulties.
With flawless performances and naturalistic direction, Lollipop belongs in the rich canon of impassioned British social realist dramas. A moving tale of unwavering love and sisterhood, it’s a timely reminder of the urgent need for empathy for those in crisis.
Antonia Georgiou
Lollipop is released nationwide on 13th June 2025.
Watch the trailer for Lollipop here:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
RSS