It's been nearly a decade since the Kent-born writer-director Andrea Arnold last made a feature film, said Dave Calhoun in Time Out: after 2016's "American Honey", she dived into a load of TV directing work in the US and, in 2021, she made the "arresting, experimental" documentary "Cow". Now, for "Bird", she has returned to the "suburban edgelands of Kent" that were the setting of her breakout film "Fish Tank".
Nykiya Adams plays 12-year-old Bailey, who lives in a squat with her chaotic, "tattooed-to-the-eyeballs" dad (Barry Keoghan). Early one morning, she meets Bird (played by the German actor Franz Rogowski), a "spirit-like, compassionate outsider" who spends his time perching on buildings, and who gradually reveals to Bailey that he has mysterious magical powers. Swerving between "upsetting, dark realism and something much more magical, even quasi-biblical", the film skilfully balances "a fearless focus on life's tough realities with a hefty dollop of teary sentiment".
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