Academy Award winner Andrea Arnold is taking her biggest risk yet with “Bird.”
Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski anchor a coming-of-age fable that spreads its wings with surrealism — expanding the world of a young girl (played by newcomer star Nykiya Adams) and Arnold’s filmography in the process.
“Cow” and “American Honey” filmmaker Arnold writes and directs “Bird,” which captures life on the “marginalized fringes of contemporary society” in north Kent, England. The film follows 12-year-old Bailey (Adams), who lives with her chaotic single dad Bug (Keoghan) and uncle Hunter (Jason Buda). But after she encounters nomad Bird (Rogowski), she realizes the meaning of adult friendship.
Jasmine Jobson, Joanne Matthews, James Nelson-Joyce, Rhys Yates, and Sarah Beth Harber also star.
The IndieWire review for “Bird” charted writer/director Arnold’s “shrewd” ability to direct young stars much like Katie Jarvis (“Fish Tank”) and Sasha Lane (“American Honey”), and now, Adams.
“There’s also no better filmmaker to capture the messy, often bodily particulars of a young woman’s coming of age,” film editor Ryan Lattanzio wrote, “and that hunter-like, patient approach pays off in her collaboration with Nykiya Adams, whose tenacious without ever being grating, vulnerable without ever being weak. What’s handled with perhaps too gossamer a hand is the nature of who Bird is and where he came from. You’d be forgiven for thinking he is some kind of imaginary friend for Bailey, the very person who’d dream up such a thing and in Arnold’s most dreamlike film, but other people see him, too, so it’s not that. But that he seems to appear from nowhere — and eventually reappears in a body horror-adjacent moment that would be so ‘Black Swan’-like if it weren’t actually touching and weirdly funny instead — leaves you questioning his origins.”
“Bird” star Keoghan told IndieWire that Arnold did not provide a script, saying that the production was “pure, spontaneous, and instinctive.” Keoghan continued, “She’s almost trying to break you down in the gentlest way so you can be honest and truthful.”
He added, “‘Bird’ has been the most artistic experience ever for me as an actor. I hope it shows onscreen. I don’t like to say there’s any composure of an actor up there onscreen. I am totally immersed, and I feel the approach is in an unstructured way. Andrea creates that and sets that documentary style, and you can only be truthful to it. You kind of get found out if you’re acting.”
Co-star Rogowski also echoed to IndieWire that filming “Bird” was “quite different” from his previous experiences on sets.
The feature was made by indie production and distribution company Pinky Promise, and acquired by MUBI out of Cannes. Producers include Lee Groombridge, Tessa Ross, and Juliette Howell.
Also a director on “Big Little Lies” Season 2, Arnold is among the few filmmakers to adapt “Wuthering Heights” (2011) for the big screen. Keoghan’s former “Saltburn” collaborator, writer/director Emerald Fennell, is set to helm a new adaptation of the beloved Emily Brontë novel, with “Saltburn” actor Jacob Elordi and frequent Fennell producer Margot Robbie both starring.
“Bird” premieres November 8 in theaters. Check out the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, below.
