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Writer/director Andrea Arnold doesn’t just excel at telling stories about young people (American Honey, Fish Tank); she navigates the very difficult water of adolescence with kids who are often forced to grow up too fast because of their life circumstances.
In Bird, Arnold presents us with the life of 12-year-old Bailey (newcomer Nykiya Adams), a girl living with her young, single and impulsive father Bug (Barry Keoghan, Saltburn). Bailey is something of an amateur filmmaker, capturing moments on her phone, editing them, and projecting them on her bedroom walls, allowing herself to get lost in the beauty of moments that may not seem so beautiful to the naked eye.
Her father tells her he’s getting married to his girlfriend Kayleigh (Frankie Box) and he plans to pay for the wedding with his latest get-rich-quick scheme of selling hallucinogenic goo that he extracts from a recently acquired giant toad. The only issue is, he has no idea how to acquire such goo, but he’s heard-tell that if you play the toad emotional music, it just oozes the stuff. Bailey also has a group of friends that has been flirting with petty crimes, and she’s so angry with her father that she’s considering taking part. Arnold does a fantastic job capturing the dead-end existence that surrounds Bailey, making her sparks of imagination stand out in the bleakness.
As Bailey's life seems to become exponentially crushing, into her life enters a quiet stranger named Bird (Franz Rogowski, Passages, Transit), who is searching for his own father and maybe a friend to aide him in his quest. Bird is somewhat eccentric, which immediately makes him a target for the locals to taunt and bully, and as we learn more about Bird’s past, we understand that he’s been treated like this most of his life.
There isn’t a cohesive story to this film; it’s more a series of moments and small goals for its characters to accomplish despite so much going against them. We meet Bailey’s mother (Jasmine Jobson) and her abusive new boyfriend (James Nelson-Joyce), as well as a host of younger siblings that live with them. Bailey immediately makes it one of her goals to get those kids away from the boyfriend, and without really understanding how (magical realism does seem to play a part), Bird makes it happen.
Having a host of first-time actors blend their performances with more famous faces makes Bird something truly moving and special, and finds a way to sell the reality of Bailey’s world a whole lot more convincingly. There’s a fire-behind-the-eyes quality to the work brings these grim location to life, and by the time we get to Bug’s wedding, things like happiness and possibility seem real.
Bird is now in theaters.
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