For those of you who have been eagerly waiting to watch Barry Keoghan sticking piercing into a toad during his presentation of a drug dealing group including Cold Play songs, get ready as one of the prominent British actresses Andrea Arnold has a feature for you. This season it may be right to say that Bird should be the complete showing, still however the very angsty almost underground attitude which Arnold has with her latest work is simply not the type of project which gets noticed by the Academy. It is sad, particularly because the audience’s love seems to be wrapped around the charismatic and beloved titular character of the film played by Franz Rogowski– who is phenomenal in Passages but manage to deliver an even greater performance this time.
And of course, how could we fail to mention the unforgettable Barry Keoghan, who, not only thanks to his understanding of the role he occupies, makes the image of a young father with a few offspring from different mothers – simply stunning. The most intriguing thing about Bird is the child Bailey whom Nykiya Adams plays, and it is a performance that is unrefined and visceral and makes one feel an array of emotions towards the concluding part. Bird has managed to go round the festival circuit starting with this year’s Cannes and is definitely one to watch if you want to consider yourself a film buff concerning the best films released this year. Arnold the auteur returns to advise you once more, this time sketching in themes of class, youth and sexuality which were prevalent in her other masterpieces (Fish Tank and the sad little Wuthering Heights).
People who have previously engaged with Arnold’s work may be in agreement that her films have a learning curve, and that over the years, in contrast with other indie filmmakers, her movies seem to have become more cryptic. And please do not mention that her previous film, American Honey, was 2 hours and 45 minutes long, a length that seems excessive (though, in today’s age, it seems pretty reasonable, doesn’t it?). Both that film and now Bird also share the visual characteristic of a camera being employed unflaggingly fast and at an oblique angle, which can at times be more chaotic but in an aesthetically pleasing manner as to not lose focus of the story being told. One may think of the aesthetics of Paul Greengrass and Dogme 95 type of cineration.
Through Bird, Arnold quickly immerses us in the uncomfortable worries of Bailey and the cast of her lively extended family. One of them is her young father, Bug (Keoghan), a rather appropriate moniker for a character who has a role in such a story as a Bird which later appears to have some fantastical elements and twists which we will not reveal here. Perhaps he is called Bug because of his new enterprise that involves drugs, where he allegedly uses toads to lure hibernating amphibians that are believed to be very effective in extracting some uncommon stimulating fluid. With true accent at that, Keoghan brings about a host of laughs in this exceptionally interesting and funny movie set in a rather underprivileged location in the UK.
The actual person to observe here is Bailey as she goes through a phase where she struggles to fit in with at times, an inappropriate and morally defunct crowd like the local teenage gangbangers. Wait a minute. Weren’t we all kids at some point and fell in the trap of trying to be cool even when it meant participating in activities that made no — is there not time or a fine line that we all cross at the start of adolescence and the progress to adulthood and the responsibilities it brings?
Since that rough group does not exactly work out for Bailey, she gradually comes across a perky person on the fringe of town who refers to himself as Bird (Rogowski). And what does he say to her? “That is lovely!” after he makes clues about his friendly ways. When she asks him for what he refers to, Bird retorts undramatically, “The day.” This leaves Bailey intrigued, and in time, through a series of events that involve her assisting Bird in finding his lost family, a sweet friendship unfolds.
If there is more to Bird, with that name, it’s the deviance with which Bird is able to employ and if deep-seated personal problems and an absent father figure don’t threaten his sanity completely, being insightful regarding the oppressed childhoods along the likes of Bailey isn’t such a stretch. She, on the other hand, was never bound to have a fairy-like family life, therefore, success was always the end goal for her. She almost uncomfortably is advanced for her age — a little surprising given her parents’ history and current circumstances.
At 12-years-old, Bailey becomes acquainted with her half-brother Hunter (Jason Buda), who at the age of 14 is living a household life of dependency where he is eagerly about to have a child with a young girlfriend. They all live within Bug’s ghettos that he shares with Kailey (Frankie Box), the women he plans to wed soon which, after just three months of dating, leaves Bailey with nothing but concern as all expectations are swept away. And with Bailey officially hitting puberty one morning and being handed her first-ever tampon, like every other whining middle schooler, it’s all too much for the tween.
A lot of things lead to this final act which is difficult in nature like many of Arnold’s works but there is victory and heroism as one sees Bailey become an adapted figure in a harsh but cruel world. And with a generally melancholic tale, like that of Bailey’s don’t expect anything less than a tragic heart wrenching ending that brings a sense of hope with it.
The unease of Arnold’s camera work will perhaps be disorienting to some but she certainly does make some dramatic choices to finish what can perhaps be called her most ambitious feature yet. And tremendous respect must be paid to Rogowski in a sweet, optimistic, and subtle performance as Bird, a lost adult child that thematically mirrors our protagonist. Expect at least one Best Supporting Actor nomination for the German performer this season.
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