Bird

Is it a bird?

Yes.

Well that's that joke knackered then.

Andrea Arnold turns her directorial hand back to fiction filmmaking for the first time since 2016's excellent American Honey.

Bird follows Bailey (Nykiya Adams), a 12 year old girl growing up in a deprived area somewhere in England. Her dad 'Bug' (Barry Keoghan) is seemingly more concerned with his own life than that of his two children. This means Bailey and her older brother Hunter (Jason Buda) are for the most part left to their own devices. Hunter is part of a gang but Bailey is yet to find a friend that she truly connects with. That is until she meets Bird, a young man who's searching for his parents. They take solace in each-others family struggles and seek to help one another to resolve their family issues.

A lot of films that represent working class British life tend to show that despite not being financially well off, it is their family dynamics and by pulling together that keep each-other going. In Bird however family is the problem at the centre of the narrative. Whether it's Baileys dad being preoccupied with his new family or Birds lack of any family whatever-so-ever, they both find themselves alone. Alone in a scarily accurate world of deprivation where connection is essential for survival.

I'm trying hard not to spoil anything as there's so many plot ends going on that it would be easily done. Each of those plot points however blends seamlessly with the next keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat right from the start.

Barry Keoghan turned down Gladiator 2 to be in this film and without a doubt he made the right decision. Andrea Arnold has yet again crafted a depressing and yet hopeful look at a reality many people live through daily.

I had the opportunity to screen Bird at Newfest this past Wednesday at the SVA Theater, and it left an indelible mark on me-an experience that makes it easy to see why Andrea Arnold remains one of our most distinctive and fearless filmmakers. Arnold, whose works like Fish Tank and American Honey have long portrayed the fragile and bruised edges of society, delivers once again with a deeply affecting exploration of youth and its collision with the harsh realities of the adult world.

Nykiya Adams is utterly mesmerizing as Bailey, a resourceful teenager trying to make sense of the world around her while living on the fringes of Kent, England. Her performance is a revelation-filled with subtlety, grace, and the kind of honesty that feels almost documentary-like in its authenticity. Through Bailey's untainted gaze, we are confronted with a world that is both brutal and bewildering, but Arnold ensures that moments of tenderness and wonder break through the grimness. Adams has crafted a character who is not merely a victim of her circumstances but is instead a figure who finds beauty and resilience in spite of them.

Barry Keoghan plays Bailey's father, and he's as captivating as ever. His portrayal of a man entangled in shady dealings and moral ambiguity is layered with equal parts charm and menace. Keoghan's ability to oscillate between warmth and cold detachment keeps the audience on edge-he embodies a character who is meant to protect but is ultimately just as lost as the child he's trying to care for. In many ways, his character symbolizes the fractured state of authority that Bailey must navigate. Franz Rogowski also delivers a standout performance, bringing a quiet intensity to the role of an enigmatic figure who both looms over and occasionally offers glimpses of humanity amidst the bleakness.

Bird is quintessential Andrea Arnold-an immersive, visceral plunge into the lives of characters living on society's fringes. The camera work is as restless as Bailey herself, moving with a sense of urgency that pulls us directly into her experience. Arnold's use of handheld cinematography amplifies the sense of instability and danger, but there's also an intimacy in the way she frames Bailey's interactions with the world-a reminder that there's still magic to be found, even in the most unexpected places. The visual language here is striking in its ability to capture both the beauty and the decay of Bailey's world.

What truly stands out about Bird is its ability to balance two seemingly contradictory feelings: a sense of hope and the pervasive weight of despair. The film manages to capture both the haunting and the hopeful aspects of its setting with empathy and ingenuity. Arnold has always been adept at portraying complex, contradictory emotions, and Bird is no exception. The narrative is less about delivering a clear-cut plot and more about creating an emotional tapestry-a mood piece that speaks to the resilience of the human spirit. There's an almost Roger Ebert-esque appreciation for the small moments here, the sort of fleeting beauty that reminds us why we watch films in the first place.

Bird resonates because it refuses to offer easy answers. Instead, Arnold immerses us in a world that is fractured yet deeply real, a world that mirrors the uncertainties of Bailey's life and her unflagging determination to find her own place within it. There's a poeticism to the way Arnold captures her characters-not through grand speeches or melodramatic moments but through the silences, the glances, and the mundane details that add up to something profoundly human.

At the end of the day, Bird is a triumph-an evocative portrait of innocence, resilience, and the inescapable weight of the adult world. It's a film that lingers, that refuses to let you go, and that challenges you to see the beauty even in the most broken places. Andrea Arnold has given us a story that doesn't just tell-it moves, it questions, and it reverberates.

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I'm from North Kent and I have thought about whether that biased my review.

But ultimately I think because I have first hand knowledge of all the locations and indeed the type of people shown I can confidently say this is one of the most believable portrayals of an area I've ever seen.

The use of mystery and mystical elements give this tale a unique twist and one that I've fell head over heels for.

The acting is truly amazing with the cast managing to stir a plethora of emotions in me.

This film is funny, heartwarming, heartbreaking and very intense.

I truly think Andrea Arnold could nail any genre with her direction.

The way no character is patronised for their circumstances makes me so proud to actually have been raised in very similar ways and still be a somewhat functioning adult.

This is highly recommended.

There are two lovely performances to enjoy in this story of the twelve year old "Bailey" (Nykiya Adams). She lives in a squat with her dad "Bug" (Barry Keoghan), brother "Hunter" (Jason Buda) and her soon-to-be stepmum "Kayleigh" (Frankie Box). It's that impending wedding, and the wearing of a pretty garish pink cat-suit, that puts her at odds with her well-meaning dad and sees her left to amuse herself amidst the fields of Kent. It's there that she encounters the rather enigmatic "Bird" (Franz Rogowski) who is looking for his parents who lived in a Gravesend tower block near her home. She decides to try and help this rather quirky chap and quickly their lives become curiously linked as we discover that her mother (Jasmine Jobson) is struggling through an abusive relationship with boyfriend "Skate" (James Nelson-Joyce) whilst also trying to bring up three youngsters. With the quest for her new friend's parents, her desire to help her mum and siblings and her dad's pressure to engage with his own hopes for happiness, the young "Bailey" hasn't her challenges to seek. Keoghan features energetically as he zips around the housing estates on his e-scooter, and his character serves well to help keep the main characterisations going - and it's on that front there's a charmingly understated chemistry developed between Adams and Rogowski that mixes their respective back-stories with a soupçon of the mystic and plenty of allegorical imagery to introduce quite elusive themes of freedom, family and quite frequently fun, too. There are also some fairly violent undertones, and we are left in no doubt that her life and that of her family has been and will remain fairly turbulent - but those points are not brought to us via a sledge-hammer, more by gentle observation and development of engaging personalities that evolve gently but potently over a couple of hours. It's a slow burn, but it works.

Enjoyed Bird, some very strong performances. Inclusion of the edges of the frame added a nice touch to a very honest telling of the story through naturalistic imagery. It's a very musical film and as always good choices for the soundtrack. I would say it could be tighter in the edit and feels overly whimsical at points, but the magical realism element was an interesting and unexpected development. The film felt real throughout and the details of production design helped with that intensely. Every element felt of the film felt real and honest. My only criticism is it could have been told in an hour.

But overall, a return to the much loved Andrea Arnold of old with a new twist.