Bird (2024, dir. Andrea Arnold)
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 119 mins
UK Distributor: MUBI
UK Release Date: 8 November 2024
WHO’S IN BIRD?
Barry Keoghan, Franz Rogowski, Nykiya Adams, Jason Buda, Frankie Box, Jasmine Jobson, Joanne Matthews, James Nelson-Joyce, Sarah Beth Harber
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Andrea Arnold (director, writer), Lee Groombridge, Juliette Howell and Tessa Ross (producers), Robbie Ryan (cinematographer), Joe Bini (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A troubled girl (Adams) meets an unusual stranger (Rogowski) with a mysterious past…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON BIRD?
Andrea Arnold’s filmography consists of dramas that highlight the everyday struggle of working-class civilians, from the council estate melodrama of Fish Tank to the expansive hustler community in American Honey. But with Bird, her return to contemporary British filmmaking fifteen years after Fish Tank, she meddles with heightened magical-realism for the very first time, taking a number of interesting swings that will undoubtedly raise a few eyebrows among the auteur’s most dedicated fanbase.
How wild does Bird get? Keep in mind, this is a filmmaker who won an Oscar for a short in which Danny Dyer was a romantic lead, so she’s already proven that she can dip her toes into heightened fantasy. Joking aside, though, Arnold manages to deliver a fascinating modern-day fairy tale that only she could tell, and while it doesn’t always work you can’t help but admire how out-there it gets.
Set in a pretty dingy town in North Kent, we primarily follow 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams), who lives in a derelict housing complex with her older brother Hunter (Jason Buda) and their heavily tattooed father Bug (Barry Keoghan). With Bug getting ready to marry his girlfriend Kailey (Frankie Box), and Hunter becoming increasingly involved in vigilante gang violence, Bailey is practically left to fend for herself as the summer rages on. Soon, however, she encounters a strange man named Bird (Franz Rogowski), who initially asks for her help in locating some lost family members, but gradually forms a friendly bond with him as he begins to display unusual signs that he may not be as human as he appears.
To dive further into the exact nature of its title character would spoil the surprise that Arnold has in store, but for now I will say that it shares some connective tissue with Daina O. Pusić’s recent film Tuesday, though perhaps in not quite as outlandish a fashion (sadly, nobody raps along to Ice Cube in this movie). The filmmaker keeps many of her fantastical elements up her sleeve until the time is right, disguising overt reveals with seemingly symbolic images of birds flying in the sky and insects climbing up windows, all captured by cinematographer Robbie Ryan’s sharply rustic 16mm lens. Even when the truth becomes more and more apparent, Arnold continues playing with her audience’s expectations by never outright revealing if certain things are in a person’s imagination or actually happening, which adds to the mystery that the filmmaker is trying to preserve amidst her grounded aesthetic.
The magical-realist angle that Bird ends up taking makes for some shocking imagery that you wouldn’t have expected to see in an Andrea Arnold film up to this point, which is quite an achievement given that the film already contains some rather heavy, and on occasion overly extreme, depictions that threaten to push it into pure poverty porn. For instance, Bailey and her family live in such dire conditions, with graffiti all over the walls and mattresses on the floor in lieu of actual beds, that it almost feels parodic, like something you’d see in a spoof movie about working-class kitchen sink dramas. This also extends to some of the characters, including a particularly abusive partner of Bailey’s distant mother (Jasmine Jobson of Top Boy fame) who is cartoonishly nasty, in ways that almost have you doubting the sincerity of Arnold’s depiction of this particular poverty-stricken society. While it is entirely possible that such rundown living quarters and abrasive personalities do actually exist in pockets such as these, and maybe I am speaking from a place of middle-class privilege when pointing out their absurdity, the fact that it is nonetheless delivered so bluntly does derail its overall impact.
Luckily, the film has plenty of high points to keep itself from sinking under the weight of its own heavy-handedness. Firstly, young lead Nykiya Adams is fantastic, with the debut performer – found by Arnold via a public scouting, not too dissimilar to how she found her inexperienced leads for Fish Tank and American Honey – delivering an emphatically moving performance that offers so much youthful curiosity underneath her hardened exterior. She holds her own, and on occasion even outperforms, her more experienced co-stars Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski, the latter turning in a delightfully eccentric turn that recalls the screen mannerisms of a younger Joaquin Phoenix, while the former is filled with roguish energy as someone who clearly became a parent way too young.
The actors liven up scenes which make a play toward many of your emotions, as you feel genuine sadness when some things don’t go their way, and even some light-hearted optimism during moments that may have you unexpectedly laughing (a musical reference to Keoghan’s infamous role in Saltburn is a bit on-the-nose, but certainly got people in my screening chuckling). It goes to show that Arnold remains an empathetic filmmaker, mining all the humanity she can dig up from seemingly hopeless environments, and even when taking the big swings that she does with tone and genre, she still has that ability to cut deep within the core of her viewers who are eager to see a side to working-class communities that are not so often shown.
It can be messy, and sometimes a bit over-the-top, but Bird might just be Andrea Arnold’s most fascinating cinematic experiment to date – but, thanks to the aforementioned flaws, not her best.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Bird is an intriguing slice of magical-realism from filmmaker Andrea Arnold, which is gorgeously executed and excellently performed, particularly by young lead Nykiya Adams, but its overly grim depiction of working-class life threatens to plunge it into almost parodic territory.
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