BIRD Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Andrea Arnold
Stars: Barry Keoghan, Nykiya Adams, Franz Rogowski, Jason Buda, Frankie Box, Jasmine Jobson.
Bird is Andrea Arnold’s first new feature film in eight years, but this sometimes bleak contemporary urban drama and coming of age tale easily taps into her familiar milieu of biting social concerns, gritty realism, working class struggles and humanism. It is also raw and abrasive at times as it taps into themes of loneliness, adolescent angst, dysfunctional families, domestic violence, isolation and a sense of belonging.
Set in the northern England town of Gravesend, Bird centres around Bailey (newcomer Nykiya Adams), a precocious 12-year-old who lives in a squalid squat with her chaotic, impulsive, immature and selfish scooter-riding, heavily tattooed father Bug (Barry Keoghan, from Saltburn, etc) and her older brother Hunter (Jason Buda), who hangs with a gang of local thugs. Bug earns some quick money from importing a unique brand of toad whose slimy extrusions are a powerful hallucinogenic.
But when Bug announces that he is about to marry his live-in girlfriend Kayleigh (Frankie Box) Bailey feels alienated, confused and angry. She resents the choice of purple spandex wedding dress that they insist she wears for the big occasion. She cuts her hair in an act of rebellion. While wandering around the nearby fields working through her emotions, she encounters another local misfit in the eccentric and itinerant youth named Bird (German actor Franz Rogowski, from Victoria, etc).
An awkward friendship blossoms between the two and he helps her deal with a number of problems. Bailey is also concerned with the safety of her step-siblings who live with her mother Peyton (Jasmine Jobson) and her abusive boyfriend. Bird is also looking for the father who abandoned him years earlier and Bailey reluctantly sets out to help him in his search.
Arnold’s script has an almost aimless quality as she works in numerous diversions and subplots and some of the scenes feels improvised. Arnold’s regular cinematographer Robbie Ryan uses handheld cameras and footage shot on mobile phones to bring a sense of energy and urgency to the material. He also gives us a strong sense of place as his camera moves through the blighted, graffiti laden streets and rundown tenements. However, the constant imagery of birds flying across the sky becomes a bit heavy handed and an obvious metaphor of the freedom that Bailey covets.
Keoghan is the only recognisable name in the cast, and while his Bug is smaller role and lacks any real depth he brings a certain energy and charisma to the larger than life and exuberant role. And there is clever quick throwaway gag at the expense of Keoghan’s infamous final scene in Saltburn which will resonate with knowing audiences. The film though belongs to newcomer Adams, who is on screen for the whole film as the adolescent Bailey, and brings a wonderful mix of anger, resentment, angst, resilience and emotion to the role. Rogowski brings a wounded quality, compassion and vulnerability to his performance as the titular character. And at certain angles and lighting he resembles a younger, leaner Joaquin Phoenix.
But there is a scene of disturbing violence late in the film that also introduces an unnecessary element of fantasy and magical realism that may jar with some. But despite the grim nature of much of the drama that unfolds, this flawed film finally manages to end on an upbeat note that holds out hope for a much brighter future for Bailey.
★★★
