Bird

Director: Andrea Arnold
Starring: Nykiya Adams, Franz Rogowski, Barry Keoghan, Jason Buda
Distributor: Mushroom / Reset Collective
Runtime: 112 mins. Reviewed in Feb 2025
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

| |

Rating notes: Strong violence and coarse language

Bailey lives with her brother Hunter and her father Bug, who raises them alone in a squat in northern Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time to devote to them. Bailey looks for attention and adventure elsewhere.

A British slice of life. This time in south-east England, Kent, the area where director Andrea Arnold grew up. This part of Kent is not an area for easy living, especially for the young teens, trying to make their way, and dealing with parents who are only 14 years older than they are. They have to be tough, have to manage, to learn by their own mistakes and especially what they see in their parents.

This is the story of 12-year-old Bailey, of West Indian and English ancestry, a bravura and strong performance from Adams. We first see her with her phone, photographing birds, and we are alerted that this will be a theme, both realistic and symbolic, as the film progresses. Then she is picked up by her father, and together, on the scooter, they speed and swoop through the town, landing at home where her father, Bug, (Keoghan) announces that he will be getting married to his girlfriend at the weekend. Bailey is not impressed.

Also at home is her half-brother, Hunter (Buda), 14, who is involved with a local gang that terrorise locals with their camera, photographing stuff that they can blackmail their victims with. And Hunter wants to run away to Scotland with his 14-year-old girlfriend, Moon. One of the symbolic bird sequences has Bailey trying to deliver Hunter’s letter to Moon when the bird swoops, snatches the letter in its beak and delivers it. Touches of ‘magic realism’ throughout the film.

But we discover that the Bird of the title is Rogowski who is on a quest to find his birth mother.

Which turns the narrative into a search, a quest, Bailey taking on Bird. A joyful excursion to the seaside with the half-brother and sisters who live with her birth mother, discovering Bird’s father and some explanation if not joy.

There is some happiness in this family’s life, Bailey bringing Hunter home from his forlorn search for Moon, the wedding celebration includes exuberant dancing, and a visit from Bird, the audience seeing him from Bailey’s viewpoint, covered in feathers, a protecting bird, a flyaway bird. Bailey is only 12. And all her life is before her. We might wonder how Andrea Arnold saw Bailey’s future.