Film Snail

Bird
Bird

7.2

Bird

R·2024·119m

Summary

12-year-old Bailey lives with her single dad Bug and brother Hunter in a squat in North Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time for his kids, and Bailey, who is approaching puberty, seeks attention and adventure elsewhere.

Crew

Director, Screenplay

Andrea Arnold

Script Editor

Ben Ferrity

Reviews

Geronimo1967

Geronimo1967

November 10, 2024

7

There are two lovely performances to enjoy in this story of the twelve year old "Bailey" (Nykiya Adams). She lives in a squat with her dad "Bug" (Barry Keoghan), brother "Hunter" (Jason Buda) and her soon-to-be stepmum "Kayleigh" (Frankie Box). It's that impending wedding, and the wearing of a pretty garish pink cat-suit, that puts her at odds with her well-meaning dad and sees her left to amuse herself amidst the fields of Kent. It's there that she encounters the rather enigmatic "Bird" (Franz Rogowski) who is looking for his parents who lived in a Gravesend tower block near her home. She decides to try and help this rather quirky chap and quickly their lives become curiously linked as we discover that her mother (Jasmine Jobson) is struggling through an abusive relationship with boyfriend "Skate" (James Nelson-Joyce) whilst also trying to bring up three youngsters. With the quest for her new friend's parents, her desire to help her mum and siblings and her dad's pressure to engage with his own hopes for happiness, the young "Bailey" hasn't her challenges to seek. Keoghan features energetically as he zips around the housing estates on his e-scooter, and his character serves well to help keep the main characterisations going - and it's on that front there's a charmingly understated chemistry developed between Adams and Rogowski that mixes their respective back-stories with a soupçon of the mystic and plenty of allegorical imagery to introduce quite elusive themes of freedom, family and quite frequently fun, too. There are also some fairly violent undertones, and we are left in no doubt that her life and that of her family has been and will remain fairly turbulent - but those points are not brought to us via a sledge-hammer, more by gentle observation and development of engaging personalities that evolve gently but potently over a couple of hours. It's a slow burn, but it works.

Media

Status:

Released

Original Language:

English

Budget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Keywords

grave
coming of age
domestic abuse
female protagonist
magic realism
lgbt
biracial
teenage pregnancy
woman director
angry
spousal abuse
father daughter relationship
brother sister relationship
cheerful
matter of fact
powerful
kent, england