Twelve-year-old Bailey is writer and director Andrea Arnold’s third young, female protagonist in her coming-of-age drama Bird.
Bailey is beginning puberty, and amidst her maelstrom of physical and behavioural changes, she must navigate this transformation against the backdrop of England’s urban underbelly, laid bare to audiences as violent yet strangely poetic, both hostile and tender.
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Her strikingly young parents Bug (Barry Keoghan) and Peyton (Jasmine Jobson), symbolise a life that oscillates between love and recklessness, a chaotic push and pull that mean Bailey’s strength and resilience are beginning to be tested in ways she never anticipated.
In her vulnerability she meets enigmatic Bird (Franz Rogowski), a young man also on a mirroring journey of self-discovery in trying to find his long-lost parents. Together, the pair find solace in their companionship as they help each other navigate the balance of familial devotion and personal survival.
Arnold’s films are uniquely attuned to the behaviours of animals, relying on ecology and nature as a representation of her characters deepest, frequently unspoken emotions. In saying this, birds migrate throughout the film, with their soaring presence a potent symbol of escape and longing, a motif that underscores Bailey’s yearning for freedom and to take flight. Yet Bird does not merely dwell in escaping hardship; it finds poetry and solace in the everyday, layering the film with elements of a newly-thought magical realism for Arnold, which blurs the lines between dreaming and reality.
Bird is a testament to Arnold’s gift for delving into the rawest and grittiest corners of the human experience, being guided by empathy and curiosity. She successfully embraces her erratic and morally ambiguous characters rather than passing judgment on their controversial life choices, highlighting there is always more beneath the surface, particularly in means of survival.
So, unsurprisingly by the film’s ending I found myself deeply invested in these characters, their struggles, their fleeting joys, and their unwavering pursuit of compassion, loyalty, and hope. These messages were conveyed by a brilliant and dedicated cast, particularly for Adams, whose film debut was a triumph. Further, Keoghan and Rogowski have a magnetic presence in their respective scenes, cementing them as important actors in contemporary cinema.
Bird is a winged victory and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, delivered with Arnold’s unerring eye for life’s bruised yet beating heart.
The only thing missing? Nelly Furtado’s I’m Like a Bird playing over the end credits.
Bird is set to release across Australia on Thursday 20 February.
