The opening shot of Bird, Kent-born director Andrea Arnold’s new cinematic masterpiece, is a clue that can help to unlock the confounding film that will follow. We see two birds swooping through the air, coursing through a pastel blue sky – but our view is partially obscured by an ugly metal fence. The image is also being snapped by 12-year-old Bailey (played by screen newcomer Nykiya Adams), a fellow Kent native who spends much of the film taking pictures on her smartphone.
Living in a graffiti-strewn squat with a feckless Dad (Barry Keoghan) and her disaffected half-brother, Hunter (Jason Buda), Bailey clearly feels out of control. Her father’s similarly disaffected friends come and go as they please and he’s about to marry Kayleigh (Frankie Box), a woman he’s known for a few months – never mind his daughter’s disapproval. So, like many a photographer before her, the 12-year-old captures images to try and make sense of her world, to create a version of it that she can contain.
