Viewers anticipating a dour examine in British miserabilism are in for a bracing shock on this warmly affecting portrait of resilience at its flintiest and funniest. Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Charlotte Regan, this quirky slice of life seeks to subvert practically each expectation arrange by what was as soon as referred to as kitchen-sink drama, with its monochrome palette and hangdog naturalism. Instead, “Scrapper” bursts with colour (the models in Georgie’s residence advanced are painted superb shades of pink, yellow and aquamarine), and the story is equally alive with optimism and vagrant scraps of pure joy.

At first, these moments of exuberance come from Georgie herself — an unforgettable character performed by newcomer Lola Campbell with an irresistible mixture of toughness and vulnerability. With her finest pal Ali (Alin Uzun), Georgie spends most of her time stealing bicycles, which the pair unexpectedly repaint and promote for a couple of kilos. Quick on her ft, Georgie might be trusted to speak their means out of a bind once they’re caught red-handed. Her ferociously impartial existence is going simply wonderful till her father, Jason — who left when she was a child — reveals up out of nowhere. Just when this man-child is able to take duty, his precise youngster has zero curiosity in being parented.

Harris Dickinson, final seen within the wealth-disparity satire “Triangle of Sadness,” is just about unrecognizable as Jason, who has been dwelling on Ibiza and has the bleach-blond tricks to show it. Audiences conditioned to concern the worst — i.e., anybody who’s seen “Fish Tank” or “Aftersun” — will likely be understandably cautious of Jason’s newfound dedication to fatherhood. In Dickinson’s alert, always-game fingers, his character slowly morphs from a maybe-shady get together boy to somebody way more interesting and substantive.

Regan directs “Scrapper” with distinctive verve, interrupting the narrative with witty documentarylike asides whose framing evokes the poppy aesthetic of Wes Anderson. In addition to creating a shocking discovery in Campbell, she lets the viewers in on her personal vicarious pleasure at merely watching her two lead gamers riff and improvise off one another, typically with hilarious outcomes, equivalent to once they play at impersonating two strangers at a prepare station. As a lot as Regan infuses her movie with cheerful bravado, the grief underlying Georgie’s don’t-mess-with-me independence is by no means removed from the floor.

As a world-builder, Regan has made a movie each bit as feisty, self-possessed and street-smart as Georgie herself. Delicately dancing the knife edge between too-cute and over-maudlin, the filmmaker and her terrific actors have given viewers that rarity in cinema: uplift with out the dreary moralizing. To use Georgie’s time period of artwork, “Scrapper” actually is aware of the right way to model it out.

Unrated. At the Avalon Theatre. Contains nothing objectionable. 84 minutes.