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DIRECTED BY: Andrea Arnold

FEATURING: Nukiya Adams, Franz Rogowski, Barry Keoghan

PLOT: Twelve-year-old Bailey comes of age among a family of social outcasts, feeling like an outsider until she finds hope in her acquaintance  with an enigmatic boy named Bird.

COMMENTS:  British cinema has always had a fondness towards the marginalized. Since the late fifties and sixties, kitchen sink realism has put the working class on the foreground. Contemporary movies have portrayed social outcasts, too: in Marxist terms, the sub-proletarians (the poorest of the working class) and lumpenproletarians (a group without class consciousness—criminals, the chronically unemployed—a distinct class below the workers). Andrea Arnold’s most recent feature film tackles the subject of coming-of-age in such an environment while maintaining a lighthearted tone, in a similar vein to Charlotte Regan’s Scrapper (2023).  Both films combine the harshest aspects of reality with a healthy dose of fairy tale magical realism, a merging of styles that seems to be a tendency in contemporary British cinema.

Bird‘s plot revolves around a twelve-year-old Bailey. It is clear from the beginning that she feels like an outsider even in her own family, who are already a band of misfits. Her father plans a wedding with his latest girlfriend, ignoring Bailey’s wants, and her brother is preoccupied with his criminal gang and refuses to include her because she is too young. Feeling lonely and angry with the world, Bailey finds comfort and inspiration in animals. That is, until she meets Bird, an enigmatic young man looking for his own parents.

Bird is a mysterious person with an even more obscure past. He is an angelic figure, always willing to help. He is also a bird trapped in a human body. The way he finds comfort by standing still on top of buildings or walls is uncanny. Every now and then his expressions and movements imitate those of a bird, especially when, in a late choreography of desperation, he turns around like a fowl with broken wings. He is more than he seems, although his origin and true nature remain open to interpretation.

Bird drives the plot, but Bailey is the main character. The camera follows her around in her wandering misadventures, while short flashbacks offer windows into her inner thoughts. Bird is essentially her coming-of-age tale, showcasing landmarks of her physical transformation into a woman—her first period—as well as her mental maturation. Birds and the eponymous boy will play a major role in the latter. Birds are not only symbols of freedom, but become agents of a change; the film has an animistic worldview.

In the end, Bailey finds her place. A joyous conclusion  pays respects to family, however unconventional they seem at first glance. Bird stands out as a unique combination of social and magical realism, but it won’t appeal to hardcore fans of the weird and the bizarre. For those that love their social realism with a touch of poetry, though, it merits a recommendation.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The introduction of surrealism has the ironic effect of breaking the spell that has marked Arnold’s best films… A resolutely realistic filmmaker turning to magical realism has the uncomfortable effect of making the whole movie… feel inauthentic.”–Jake Coyle, AP (contemporaneous)

Bird [Blu-ray]

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