34/35
Bailey seeks attention and adventure elsewhere
Plot
Bailey lives with her brother Hunter and father Bug, who raise them alone in a squat in north Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time for them.
Edited as Fontaine’s DC: Bug (2024)
Barry Keoghan dropped out of Μονομάχος II (2024) to star in this film instead. ‘Bird’ has similarities to Andrea Arnold’s previous film ‘Fishtank’, in which an alienated teenager puts herself in grave danger in an attempt to escape loneliness and domestic dysfunction.
In this new work, Arnold focuses on Bailey, a pre-teen living in a chaotic squat with her father and older brother
Her dad, Bugs, is planning to marry his sleazy new girlfriend, while her troubled mother lives nearby in even worse circumstances with a violently abusive boyfriend, a mess of Bailey’s younger siblings, and a long-suffering puppy named Dave. None of the adults in her universe seem to be able to offer much guidance, leaving Bailey to chart her own course.
After some hesitation, Bailey decides to help him
After evading the police, sleeping in a field, and being awakened by a horse, she encounters a stranger named Bird. This eccentric traveler was born in the area, raised elsewhere, and is trying to find the father she barely remembers.
Arnold somehow pulls off this trick, transforming his urban drama into an intense and unforgettable fable
Nykiya Adams gives a bold and convincing performance in the lead role, as Bailey’s quest to find Bird is interspersed with other diversions, distractions, and subplots. Her seemingly aimless wanderings eventually culminate in a revealing moment, depicted in an unusual passage where the film briefly departs from gritty realism and enters the realm of the fantastic.