Bird

Andrea Arnold (Red Road, Fish Tank, American Honey) returns with another intriguing and ultimately moving tale of a young woman living on the edge of poverty and finding meaning in her life by connecting with another person. This time, the protagonist is a 12-year-old girl named Bailey (a wonderful first-time actor named Nykiya Adams) who befriends a stranger who comes to her small English town of Gravesend in north Kent. This stranger is quite strange, and not just because he's played by arthouse weirdo-fuck-boy fav Franz Rogowski (Transit, Great Freedom, Passages). He goes by Bird and acts very much like a bird. Not a bird of prey, but a bird who might have fallen out of his nest when he was a baby and never learned to fly or socialize. He's in town looking for his long-lost parents, at least one of whom may have lived in an apartment complex where Bailey used to live with her family. She now cohabitates in a run-down building with her single dad, Bug (played by arthouse-weirdo-turned-Oscar-darling Barry Keoghan), and her rebellious half-brother Hunter (Jason Buda).

Bug doesn't have much time for his kids, as he's one of those guys who never really grew up himself. While trying to get rich off a hallucinogenic toad, he announces that he is going to get married in a week to Kayley (Frankie Box), a woman he has known for just three months. This pisses Bailey off. She's just hitting puberty and could probably benefit from having an older female in her life, but Kayley doesn't seem to fit the bill. Bailey's own mother, Peyton (Jasmine Jobson), lives with a toxic boyfriend, Skate (James Nelson-Joyce), but Bailey still visits her and has a semi-parental big-sister relationship with her half-siblings. She hopes Peyton can help Bird and that maybe they can help Peyton.

I can't say I thought this movie worked as beautifully as some of Arnold's previous pictures, but I'm a sucker for both magic realism and brief encounter pictures, and Bird checks both boxes. The performances are excellent, especially by all of the young women in the cast, but I was also moved by Keoghan's portrayal of the kind of irresponsible guy who probably never should have had kids—certainly not as young as he did—but is trying to do the best he can by them. I am not sure Rogowski or Arnold quite pull off what they try to do with their title character, as I think Arnold is still at her best when telling stories that are fully grounded in everyday realities. Still, I appreciated the attempt at blending English kitchen sink drama with magical realism. This movie works a hell of a lot better than Brewster McCloud!