Bird review – a mag­i­cal, ener­getic marvel

Grief is the spec­tre that haunts Andrea Arnold’s work like Cather­ine Earn­shaw fat­ed to for­ev­er roam the York­shire moors. Haunt­ings keep the past alive; this is not mere nos­tal­gia, but a con­scious car­ry­ing of the past with us into the present, for bet­ter or for worse. In Red Road, the dev­as­tat­ed Jack­ie, still seek­ing jus­tice for the death of her hus­band and daugh­ter, is dri­ven to make a heinous false accu­sa­tion against their killer. Star, the teenage girl at the heart of Amer­i­can Hon­ey, flees a life of pover­ty and abuse, only to find her­self in a romance with an unsta­ble drifter. Even Cow, Arnold’s 2021 doc­u­men­tary about the depress­ing dai­ly life of a dairy cow named Luma, plays out with the same sad­ness, as we see Luma’s calf being tak­en away from her short­ly after birth, and are con­front­ed with the short, sharp shock of Luma’s death when she ceas­es to become prof­itable as an asset. 

Con­tin­u­ing the ani­mal theme that began with her short films Dog and Wasp and con­tin­ued into fea­tures with Fish Tank, her sixth fea­ture Bird is a con­tin­u­a­tion of ideas that have endured across her 23-year career. As in all her films, the lead is a young woman with a tur­bu­lent home life – 12-year-old Bai­ley (new­com­er Nykiya Adams), who roams the vicin­i­ty of her squat with a sullen scowl and a jut­ted jaw, like she’s itch­ing for a fight. Who can blame her? 

There is harsh­ness always lin­ger­ing in the periph­ery, notably in the form of her absent mother’s vio­lent boyfriend Skate (James Nel­son-Joyce) and her charis­mat­ic but volatile father Bug (Bar­ry Keoghan, cov­ered in a biosphere’s worth of insect tat­toos), but also in the gang her half-broth­er Hunter (Jason Buda) is a mem­ber of, who enact vig­i­lante jus­tice on locals they have deemed in need of a duff­ing up. Bai­ley, on the cusp of teen­dom, shows signs of inter­nal­is­ing this, pes­ter­ing Hunter to join his gang, and react­ing with (admit­ted­ly jus­ti­fied) hos­til­i­ty when Bug announces he’s mar­ry­ing his girl­friend of three months at the weekend. 

Exhaust­ed and angry, Bai­ley flees into the estu­ary fields, where she meets a strange man who intro­duces him­self as Bird (Franz Rogows­ki, with his soft, lilt­ing Ger­man accent and wide, bright eyes, imbued with a grace Bai­ley has not encoun­tered much). She reacts – as any street-smart kid would – with sus­pi­cion, imme­di­ate­ly whip­ping out her phone to film him and threat­en­ing to get her broth­er to beat him up if he ​“tries any­thing”. Bird, uncon­cerned, per­forms a small dance. He explains he’s look­ing for his peo­ple, and Bai­ley reluc­tant­ly gives him direc­tions to the address scrib­bled on the back of a cig­a­rette pack­et. Before he leaves, Bird looks up at the sun­rise for a long moment. ​“It’s beau­ti­ful, isn’t it?’ he remarks to Bai­ley. ​“What is?’’ she grous­es, hav­ing had enough of this weirdo. He smiles gen­tly. ​“The day.”

Despite her hos­til­i­ty (forged by a world which hasn’t giv­en her much to be opti­mistic about so far), Bai­ley can’t shake a lin­ger­ing curios­i­ty about the odd Bird, and after covert­ly fol­low­ing him for a bit, she offers – again couched in a sort of reluc­tance – to help him find his fam­i­ly, despite, or per­haps owing to, the pos­si­ble implo­sion of her own. Bird’s plight offers not only a dis­trac­tion for Bai­ley but also a glimpse of kinship. 

Bird, who takes all Bailey’s barbs on the chin, is more mater­nal than pater­nal, earnest­ly telling Bai­ley she’s beau­ti­ful after she den­i­grates her appear­ance (both her par­ents call her ugly after she shaves her hair in a fit of pre-teen rebel­lion) and prov­ing a pro with her younger sib­lings on a day trip to the beach. It’s at the sea­side that Bai­ley wades out into the gen­tle tide and floats on her back – a scene that mir­rors the end of Amer­i­can Honey. 

In both instances, Arnold com­mu­ni­cates a sense of peace that comes from nature, but also the idea of a rebirth. For Star, the real­i­sa­tion has final­ly come that she can live life on her own terms, but for Bai­ley, it’s an indi­ca­tion of how com­fort­able she has become. For one brief moment, she’s a kid again, float­ing on her back, look­ing up at the sky, not bur­dened by her father’s mad­cap mon­ey­mak­ing ven­tures involv­ing hal­lu­cino­genic toads, or her mother’s clear­ly abu­sive rela­tion­ship and the threat that pos­es to her lit­tle sis­ters and brother

Per­haps unex­pect­ed­ly, Bird calls to mind Spielberg’s sem­i­nal sci-fi E.T. the Extra-Ter­res­tri­al, in which anoth­er child forms a friend­ship with a mys­te­ri­ous vis­i­tor look­ing for a home (Bird and Bai­ley, E.T. and Elliott). While Bird skews more ​“mag­i­cal real­ism” than out­right fan­ta­sy, it pos­sess­es the same self-seri­ous young pro­tag­o­nist, dogged by a grief they are too young to for­mal­ly artic­u­late or process. Sim­i­lar­ly, as Spielberg’s film was praised for its dark­er take on Amer­i­can sub­ur­bia, Arnold sub­verts the idea of the work­ing-class estates of North Kent as per­va­sive­ly grim. 

The squat in which Bai­ley lives is run-down, but char­ac­terised by its sun­light and the per­son­alised marks that make it home. Chil­dren laugh and shout and play in the streets. Over the cred­its, the cast, crew and locals lip-sync to Fontaines D.C.’s ​“Too Real” which is used in the film. This is no kitchen sink dra­ma; those most mar­gin­alised by years of British aus­ter­i­ty are mak­ing do, and they’re as enti­tled to mag­ic as the rest.

Bailey’s feel­ings of rejec­tion have led her to reject the world back in turn, but the arrival of Bird – and the slow unfurl­ing of his own iso­la­tion – starts to change her per­spec­tive. Cru­cial­ly, it isn’t one grand ges­ture that does it, but instead a patch­work of moments, not all of which come from Bird him­self. The flawed parental fig­ures of Bird are not mon­sters, but rather hope­less­ly human, able to grow and change along with Bai­ley her­self, they in turn fucked up by cir­cum­stance. So there is grief here, yes, in the over­cast skies and pave­ment cracks. It lingers for what was lost and what was nev­er allowed to begin with. But a haunt­ing doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Per­haps it can be a reminder that we’re nev­er tru­ly alone, even when we feel it the most.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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