Arnold takes flight with ‘Bird’

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

The Oscar-winning writer-director Andrea Arnold returns to scripted, feature-length fiction filmmaking with the quintessentially Arnoldian “Bird,” an unsettling coming-of-age tale set in the hard-edged environs of northern Kent. Arnold’s own personal history, which includes teenage parents and a council estate residency during childhood, has previously inspired the autobiographical impulse in her filmmaking. The fantasy elements that govern the imagination of lead character Bailey (Nykiya Adams), a neglected 12-year-old who fends for herself in a rundown squat with older half-brother Hunter (Jason Buda) and erratic father Bug (Barry Keoghan), might just represent our protagonist’s coping mechanisms.

Bailey is not particularly impressed when Bug announces plans to marry Kayleigh (Frankie Box), his girlfriend of a mere three months. And if that news isn’t stressful enough, Bailey’s mom Peyton (Jasmine Jobson) has partnered up with the awful Skate (James Nelson-Joyce), a verbally and physically abusive lout with a hair-trigger. Amidst the trauma, the mysterious vagabond Bird (Franz Rogowski) rises like an otherworldly phoenix from the ashes of Bailey’s bleak reality to offer a series of distractions and a sense of purpose. The always magnetic Rogowski laces Bird with an aura that balances on the blade’s edge between childlike openness and simmering danger.

Critical reaction to Arnold’s incorporation of CGI (and custom contact lenses) to intensify Bailey’s visions of Bird has been surprisingly negative, but the construction of the title character by Arnold and Rogowski — who perches in the nude on a neighboring rooftop overlooking Bailey’s bedroom window — has befuddled and alarmed viewers unable or unwilling to accept the filmmaker’s fierce alignment with the messy complexities of adolescence. Bailey’s intricate gender evolution, which Arnold expresses with a sensitivity and subtlety diametrically opposed to Bird’s florid symbolism, provides a strong clue that the central character is working extremely hard to figure things out, including her understanding of more than one unorthodox father figure.

Arnold will use the two older men in Bailey’s life to startling effect. Without spoiling any of the sublime joys that unfold during the movie’s late stages, I would argue that Arnold is in complete command of these rare creatures. Expectations are, if not entirely upended, certainly tinkered with in glorious fashion; the entire duration of Bug’s wedding reception is a tour de force, a glistening sunshower powered by Keoghan’s rendition of Blur’s “The Universal.” Unsurprisingly, Arnold continues to match the right song to the right moment. Burial provides the instrumental backbone to the film and tracks by Fontaines D.C., Gemma Dunleavy, Sleaford Mods, and several others focus our attention at key points.

Along with the grown-ups who cause so much pain and confusion, Arnold populates “Bird” with fledglings who receive Bailey’s attention, care and concern. Bailey may still be a child in several ways, but she is functionally a parent to the younger siblings in her mother’s household. Bug’s status as a teenage father is echoed in Hunter’s predicament, a mirror Arnold uses to reflect the cycle of babies having babies. And the arrival of Bailey’s first period is yet another way that Arnold asks the viewer to think about the liminal space between innocence and experience. Arnold’s commitment to social critique remains, but a willingness to stretch her wings in the direction of something that transcends the everyday is a welcome addition to an impressive filmography.