Bird

With British director Andrea Arnold you never know quite what to expect. Her previous outing was in 2021 with the documentary Cow which detailed an animal’s existence from birth to death.

With Bird she’s back to her more gritty social-realist dramas such as Fish Tank and Red Road, dealing with a dysfunctional family and how 12-year-old Bailey (a knock-out début performance from Nykiya Adams) copes with an older brother Hunter (Jason Edward Buda) and her dad Bug (Saltburn’s Barry Keoghan), who has troubles of his own.

In emotional age he doesn’t seem that much older than the children, but is planning an 'official' wedding, to the embarrassment of Bailey.

It’s set in Gravesend in Kent in a graffiti strewn apartment block where Bailey retreats into her now little world in a curtain-covered bed. To seek solace she shoots videos on her phone - mainly seagulls and anyone she happens to encounter. One individual is the strange Bird (played by Franz Rogowski), who appears in a field in a kilt and dances around her.

Amid all the deprivation Arnold, as is her style, uncovers elements that lift the action out of the ordinary and into the realms of fantasy and magical realism, and ultimately provides an uplifting outcome.

Arnold knows Kent well, because she grew up in the area, and films it with an insider’s intimate knowledge and assurance. Also her previous work with non-professional actors pays even more dividends here with outstanding contributions from the cast, especially Adams, whose presence in almost every sequence of the film draws you inexorably into her existence on the margins where painfully nobody seems to care.