17/43
Bailey seeks attention and adventure elsewhere
Tale
Bailey lives with her brother Hunter and father Bug, who raised them alone in north Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time for them. Barry Keoghan dropped out of Gladiator II (2024) and starred in this film instead.
Edited to Fountains DC: Bug (2024)
‘Bird’ has similarities to Andrea Arnold’s previous film Fishtank; in which an estranged teenager finds herself in serious danger while trying to escape loneliness and domestic dysfunction. In this new work, Arnold focuses on a still-teen Bailey, who lives in a chaotic house with her father and older brother. Her dad, Bug, is planning to marry his sleazy new girlfriend, while her deranged mother lives nearby in even more dire circumstances with an abusive boyfriend, a mess of Bailey’s younger siblings, and her long-suffering puppy, Dave.
After evading the police, sleeping outside and being woken up by a horse, she meets a stranger named Bird
None of the adults in her universe seem capable of giving much direction, leaving Bailey to chart her own course. After a fight with Bug, Bailey ends up shadowing a gang of street kids who are engaged in some random crime. This eccentric traveler was born in the area, raised elsewhere, and is trying to find the father he barely remembers.
After some hesitation, Bailey decides to help him
Nykiya Adams gives a brave and convincing lead role as Bailey’s search for Bird becomes entangled in other diversions, distractions, and trivia. Her apparently aimless wanderings eventually reach a revealing moment, depicted in a remarkable passage where the film briefly veers away from gritty realism and into the realm of fantasy. Somehow Arnold pulls off this trick, transforming his urban drama into an intense and memorable fable.
