His house: "Raging Grace"

Paris Zarcilla's socially conscious chiller Raging Grace proves an apposite release for that slumpy week between Christmas and New Year: it's all rough edges, and its stronger scenes have the effect of a sudden snapping-to, a blast of ice-cold water to the face or a sharp poke under the ribs. It's been conceived in part as a reminder that there are those who don't have the luxury of spending the dog days of December - or, indeed, many days at all - conked out in front of World's Strongest Man with a tub of Celebrations to hand; that, for many, there is forever work to be done. Its heroine Joy (Max Eigenmann, from the lockdown-era Verdict) is an undocumented Filipina cleaner working the upmarket neighbourhoods of London with an eye to securing a visa, and having to do so while also keeping a close eye on her mischief-prone daughter Grace (Jaeden Boadilla). The strain involved becomes unignorable during what's effectively an extended game of hide-and-seek around the townhouse of an incapacitated servant of Empire - David Hayman's pointedly named Nigel - where Joy has to secrete Grace in her chambers, unbeknownst to her frowning employers. (A nice exchange here: asked to get ready for bed, Grace snaps "what bed?") There are, we gather, those who don't have the luxury of settling in and making plans for themselves - folks forced to live their lives on an entirely ad hoc, hand-to-mouth basis.

The film itself would bear that out whatever its subject: it's been somewhat patched together, and you sense Zarcilla straining to keep it intact the longer it goes on. Initially, Raging Grace feels out much the same territory Dirty Pretty Things passed through some twenty years ago - only it's even more pared down and cranked up, with an urgency befitting cutbacks in the real world. (Time is money there, and Zarcilla hasn't much of either.) After a few brisk strokes of characterisation, we're plunged neck-deep into Joy's predicament: being some part of a household, but also obliged to creep around in the shadows and out the servants' entrance rather than sharing in any wealth. It's the migrant experience in a nutshell: being there but not being there, and vulnerable at every turn. The cracks begin to show in Zarcilla's conception of the homesteaders. Hayman gives typically good growl as the master of the house, flipping the entire premise with one midfilm monologue, but further down the cast list, Raging Grace trades in dashed-off caricatures of privilege played by actors you've never seen before and will likely never see again. (They're like the Brits in Bollywood movies.) So the film isn't always convincing in its finer detail - its very title seems a garbled pun, given how jolly Boadilla is as the onscreen Grace - and it flatly falls apart amid its final movement, but it's oddly watchable for a long while; it's sort of fun seeing the drips and drabs of British poverty-row fare being rearranged by someone with a very different eye and ear. Tagalog music cues; dreamier plot logic than you'd get in a Rise of the Footsoldier film; effort to splice its editorial with more lurid, enthusiastically trashy elements. This is a film that doesn't work made by a debutant operating intriguingly close to the right lines - and who may end up surprising us yet.

Raging Grace is now showing in selected cinemas, and is available to rent via Curzon Home Cinema.