bird review
film by Andrea Arnold (2024)
12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) lives in a squat in North Kent with her brother Hunter (Jason Buda) and her father Bug (Barry Keoghan), whose emotional unavailability and irresponsibility leave her to her own devices during these crucial years of development.
Review by: Aaron Jones | Filed Under: Film Reviews
April 30, 2025
Seen through masculine identity and parental ineptitude that forces Bailey to trust her instincts instead of a family consumed with limited options they have been prescribed due to their socioeconomic positions, revealing a juxtaposition between Bailey through family dysfunction. Though not a loveless household, it resembles a hard-earned love battered by the arrested development of those who never learned how to show love while constantly distracted in the pursuit of gaining it from others.
Through her only means of escapism, she does the best she can exploring her potential by observing birds and the inhabitants of the natural world whose possession of flight symbolizes a longing desire deep within her to escape the trappings of poverty and find stability, whereupon she meets Bird (Franz Rogowski), a mysterious and somewhat feral loner searching for his mother who once lived in Bailey’s neighborhood.
Arnold’s talent for bringing the ribald ambiance and worn textures of poverty to the foreground is crucial to her meticulously designed milieu of contemporary England. The neighborhood embodies a writhing character that sustains a plethora of personalities whose failed pursuits of happiness are realized through its lived-in qualities of restless angst and hard-worn denizens.
A film that keeps specific characters separated, as Keoghan and Rogowski never share screen time, possibly suggesting each relationship resembles her different realities, one of dreams and the other her real life with Bailey centered within. Oscillating between her connections with Bird and her father by suggestions of a sixth sense and an ability to communicate with the natural world.
Combining the poetic use of the music lyrics often accompanying Bug, either spoken through poetic subtleties culminating through an ambiguity. One that turns into the surreal, which may come off as a tonal shift to some viewers, yet a suggested presence can be felt early in the film, accompanying its transition with an organic flow.
Exploring the coping mechanisms and symptoms of inaccessibility and why Bailey creates her own realities to compensate for the disparity of her reality. Mixing handheld authenticity and gradients of magical realism, Arnold summons a wispy and poetic coming-of-age story encapsulating those ensnared in poverty and its destructive circular rhythms without judging those caught within. Through their swelling and surmised lows, it champions their highs through their charisma struggle.
Bird is a loving and tragic portrait of metamorphosis.
Author
Reviewed by Aaron Jones. Based in California, he developed a passion for film from a young age and has since viewed over 10,000 films. His appreciation for the medium led him to film criticism, where he now writes for CinemaWaves, offering analysis of both contemporary releases and timeless classics. In addition to his work here, he has contributed to other publications as well. Feel free to follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.
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