40/33
Bailey seeks attention and adventure elsewhere
Scenario
Bailey lives with her brother Hunter and their father Bug, who is raising them alone in a squat in north Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time to devote to them. Barry Keoghan dropped out of Gladiator II (2024) to star in this film instead of me – an experience that makes it easy to see why Andrea Arnold remains one of our most distinctive and fearless filmmakers. Arnold, whose works like Fish Tank and American Honey have long depicted the fragile and bruised boundaries of society, once again delivers a deeply moving exploration of youth and its collision with the harsh realities of adulthood, as a resourceful teenager tries to make sense of the world around him while living on the outskirts of Kent, England.
Barry Keoghan plays Bailey’s father, and he is as captivating as ever
Her performance is a revelation full of subtlety, grace and the kind of honesty that feels almost documentary in its authenticity. Through Bailey’s unblemished gaze, we are confronted with a world that is both brutal and disconcerting, but Arnold ensures that moments of tenderness and wonder break through the severity. Adams has created a character who is not simply a victim of his circumstances, but rather a figure who finds beauty and resilience in spite of them. His portrayal of a man caught up in shady dealings and moral ambiguity is equal parts charm and menace.
In many ways, his character symbolizes the fractured state of authority that Bailey must navigate
Keoghan’s ability to oscillate between warmth and cool detachment keeps the audience on the edge of their seats—he embodies a character who is supposed to protect but who is as lost as the child he is trying to care for. Franz Rogowski also delivers a remarkable performance, bringing a quiet intensity to the role of an enigmatic figure who looms and occasionally offers glimpses of humanity amid the bleakness on the fringes of society. The camerawork is as restless as Bailey herself, moving with a sense of urgency that draws us directly into her experience. Arnold’s use of handheld cinematography heightens the sense of instability and danger, but there’s also an intimacy to the way she frames Bailey’s interactions with the world as a reminder that there’s still magic to be found, even in the most unexpected places.
Arnold has always been adept at portraying complex, contradictory emotions, and Bird is no exception
The visual language here is impressive for its ability to capture both the beauty and the decay of Bailey’s world. What really stands out about Bird is its ability to balance two seemingly contradictory feelings: a sense of hope and the pervasive weight of despair. The film manages to capture both the frightening and hopeful aspects of its setting with empathy and ingenuity. The storytelling is less about delivering a clear plot and more about weaving a mood piece into an emotional tapestry that speaks to the resilience of the human spirit.
Bird resonates because it refuses to offer easy answers
There’s an almost Roger Ebert-like appreciation for the small moments here, the kind of fleeting beauty that reminds us why we watch movies in the first place. Instead, Arnold immerses us in a fractured but deeply real world, one that reflects the uncertainties of Bailey’s life and her unwavering determination to find her own place within it. There’s a poeticism to the way Arnold captures her characters—not through grand speeches or melodramatic moments, but through the silences, the glances, and the mundane details that add up to something deeply human.