Bird

Saturday March 8 @ 7 pm

Preceded by Saturday

1 hr 59 min
Drama – Not rated

Andrea Arnold, the filmmaker behind Fish Tank and American Honey, has returned with a sensitive, fairytale-like coming-of-age story. 12-year-old Bailey lives with her single dad Bug, played by Barry Keoghan, who’s both charismatic and incredibly sad, in a squat in North Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time for his kids, and Bailey, who is approaching puberty, seeks attention and adventure elsewhere. Bird is for every lost child who wishes someone would have stood up and defended them. It’s a fragile but beautiful vision and marks the strongest blend yet of Andrea Arnold’s primary directives as a filmmaker.  Her films have always had a bit of the magical in them., and Bird fluidly drops in and out of reality and something more magical.

The film is very much about the desire to see and to be seen, to not constantly live with your back exposed. What can feel like an outstretched hand in a moment of need? The character, Bird (a lovable Franz Rogowski), tumbles into Bailey’s life out of nowhere, pixieish in spirit, gentle and inscrutable. A spirit-like, compassionate outsider, he wants to find his family. He doesn’t have a phone. She has no idea where he sleeps at night. Bird simply appears when he’s needed. Is it pure eccentricity or something more? Arnold has never before made this explicit a fairytale. But she doesn’t let the question of reality versus fantasy overwhelm her narrative. Ultimately, this isn’t about who Bird is but what he represents to Bailey.

With scenes of harrowing violence, the film often feels totally unsafe: no adult’s motives are beyond reproach. In true Andrea Arnold style, though, it’s also a life-enhancing tale that soars with unexpected grace, optimism, and faith in humanity. Make sure you stick around for the joyous closing credits sequence, which boasts yet more Fontaines and a sense of freedom and release that sums up this extraordinary movie. Bird is an unflinching social realist drama, though one that’s streaked with colourful moments of magical realism; an unclassifiable film with a dayglo aesthetic and an ambiguous, porous narrative that invites you to fill it with your own meaning.

But, if ever a film puts its arm round a kid and says: ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got you’, that’s Bird and Bailey. She’s a character you feel director Arnold would lie on railway tracks to protect – and that’s a powerful, moving instinct to share. It’s a wondrous portrait of the transition from childhood to adolescence that remains grounded in the filmmaker’s typically empathetic social realism, though one that’s streaked with colourful moments of magical realism; an unclassifiable film with a dayglo aesthetic and an ambiguous, porous narrative that invites you to fill it with your own meaning. She strikes a coming-of-age chord through Nykiya Adams’ moving performance, marrying fantasy and reality to the dizzying end.