BIRD (TIFF 2024) – Review by Liz Braun

Bailey, who is 12, is growing up in a squat outside London with zero adult supervision. She doesn’t lack for parents, but her father is not much more than a child himself and her mother is currently living with a violent and terrible man.

That’s the world presented in Bird, a coming-of-age drama from writer/director Andrea Arnold starring newcomer Nykiya Adams as the observant Bailey.

Bailey lives with her dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan) and older half-brother Hunter (Jason Buda) in a wrecked flat covered in graffiti in north Kent. Hunter and his friends have a vigilante group in the neighbourhood, beating up on anyone who seems to need beating up, and Bug believes his ship will come in by selling the hallucinogenic ooze put out by a special species of giant toad.

Home is chaos at all times.

So a day when Bug announces he has a surprise for Bailey seems like a very good day. Alas, it turns out the surprise is that Bug intends to marry his girlfriend of a few months. Bailey is entirely put off by this turn of events; she understands that this does not bode well for her own wellbeing as it likely threatens her living arrangements.

And living with her addled mother and three younger siblings is out of the question, given the man her mother currently lives with.

Bailey seeks solace in the natural world, photographing birds and insects and decorating her space with butterfly pictures and such. Like a lot of young people she films everything that happens around her, and she often films birds in flight. One day Bailey sneaks out to follow her brother on one of his vigilante calls, and flees when police arrive. She winds up sleeping in a farmer’s field. There, the next morning, she encounters a strange, fragile man, wearing odd clothes; he asks her if she’ll help him find a particular building and the remnants of his family.

The man (Franz Rogowski) is called Bird, and he is bird-like, perching atop a building like a kind-hearted hawk. He and Bailey begin to hang out together, ostensibly in a search for his family; the backstory is that he was a lost child, adding to the fairy-tale aura around him.

Bird is kind and protective toward Bailey, things she’s not accustomed to experiencing. He’s there for Bailey in a tense scene when her mother’s boyfriend goes ballistic on the children. The film slowly incorporates fantastical elements, most — but not all — of it seamlessly done, as Bailey continues to navigate the journey from childhood to adult life. Hers is not the only metamorphosis.

Some sections of Bird don’t work quite as well as others, but Arnold has perfectly captured certain elements of the process of growing up.

Bailey seems to have a wisdom far beyond her years, but children see everything; adolescents still have that sharp eye but they also have a growing understanding of the world, and while it lasts, that keen perception feels just like a superpower.

And, at Bailey’s age, sometimes wishing hard enough for something is enough to make it happen. Her capacity to find beauty in the world around her, regardless of what else is going on, is the heart of the story.

Bird features sometimes-intrusive music and some showy, extraneous bits that make the two-hour running time feel a bit too long. Fortunately, Nykiya Adams’ engaging performance will hold your attention throughout.