Returning to Cannes Film Festival with her first narrative feature in eight years, Andrea Arnold’s coming-of-age fable Bird brought together Barry Keoghan, Franz Rogowski, and newcomer Nykiya Adams. Now set for a theatrical release from MUBI starting November 8, they’ve dropped the first trailer and poster.
See the synopsis: “The long-awaited return to fiction filmmaking from Academy Award-winner Andrea Arnold (American Honey, Fish Tank), BIRD is a tender, striking and extraordinarily surprising coming-of-age fable about marginalised life in the fringes of contemporary society. 12-year-old Bailey (astounding newcomer Nykiya Adams) lives with her devoted but chaotic single dad Bug (Barry Keoghan, Saltburn) and wayward brother Hunter in a squat in Gravesend, north Kent. Approaching puberty and seeking attention and adventure, Bailey’s fractured home life is transformed when she encounters Bird (Franz Rogowski, Passages), a mysterious stranger on a journey of his own. A wondrous portrait of the transition from childhood to adolescence that remains grounded in her typically empathetic social realism, Arnold’s latest strides to the wildly poetic rhythm of her own drum.”
Rory O’Connor said in his review, “Shot by Robbie Ryan and featuring the first Irish character Keoghan has played in a while––as well as a soundtrack peppered with the Dublin-based music of Fontaines D.C. and Gemma Dunleavy, and with some passing references to what appears to be a local Irish traveler community––there is a vivid Hibernian energy to Bird that, on a personal level, made me doubly disappointed. Arnold has been magnificent with young actors in the past: there was a distinct feeling in American Honey (for my money, one of the best films of the last decade) that the director was conspiring with the film’s rag-tag gang of teenagers––if not their peer, then certainly an honorary ringleader. Nine years on, it’s hard to see a similar connection in Bird: Adams and Buda liven up dialogue with their own slang and colloquialisms, but certain deliveries land conspicuously flat––that touch of Arnold magic only notable for its absence.”
See the trailer below.
