Introduction:
Bird is a 2024 drama film by the talented director, Andrea Arnold whose movies always give an audience an understanding of life’s many layers. This feature casts young and talented Nykiya Adams as Bailey, a female child struggling with teenage harsh realities due to a poor family background. Obscurity and Everyone, filmed in a graffitied high-rise squat in Gravesend, Kent, “Bird” deals with personal identity, familial relationships, and loneliness. The movie is designed to move people and exhibit outstanding performances by employing hard-nosed realism and interjecting with grains of magical realism.
Release Date:
Bird showed at the Cannes Film Festival on the 16th of May in 2024 and was appreciated for their narrative method and acting. The film will be premiering in theaters across the United Kingdom and the United States on November 8, 2024, as the release date will allow the audience to watch a beautiful story based on the movie during the festive season.
Crew:
| Role | Name(s) |
|---|---|
| Director | Andrea Arnold |
| Producer | Andrea Arnold, Lee Groombridge, Juliette Howell, Tessa Ross |
| Story Writer | Andrea Arnold |
| Cinematography | Robbie Ryan |
| Editor | Joe Bini |
| Music Director | Burial |
Cast:
| Actor/Actress | Character Name |
|---|---|
| Barry Keoghan | Bug |
| Franz Rogowski | Bird |
| Nykiya Adams | Bailey |
| Jasmine Jobson | Peyton |
| Rhys Yates | Beck |
| James Nelson-Joyce | Skate |
| Joanne Matthews | Debs |
| Frankie Box | Kayleigh |
| Jason Buda | Hunter |
| Sarah Beth Harber | Dionne’s Mum |
Story:
The aforementioned plot takes place in a broken-down squat, where Bailey (Nykiya Adams) is a twelve-year-old girl who has been brought up by her brother Hunter (Jason Buda) and father Bug (Barry Keoghan). Bug cannot cater for his children anymore and half the time he is consumed with his problems, ailments, and Punches leaving Bailey cranky and thirsty for attention and outlandish adventures that she cannot find with her father at home.
Sometime later walking around the house Bailey meets a man named Bird (Franz Rogowski), who symbolizes freedom and choice. Bird makes Bailey use her creativity, and she starts doubting what she is living, mostly wishing for a different life. Throughout the story, Bailey learns about herself and the effects of a constantly changing home life.
Key Plot Points:
- Introduction to Bailey’s Life: The movie begins with certain sequences of the typical life of Bailey and her dreams of touching others.
- Meeting Bird: In Bailey’s experience with Bird, fantasy is used to kulak introduce the element of affection into Bailey’s otherwise cynical existence.
- Family Dynamics: The movie focuses on that side of Bailey’s life with Hunter and Bug, making the audience witness the effects of their situations on their mental health.
- Exploration of Identity: Having spent some time with Bird, Bailey gets to have a deep reflection on her life goals and henceforth gets to have glimpses of full realization.
- Climactic Resolution: The very plot rises to the climax that Bailey gets trapped in having to make decisions, that will affect her coming life.
Review:
First reactions to “Bird” have been mostly positive, as private and critical audiences enjoyed the film’s strong performances, visual work with cinematography, and the cast’s ability to evoke emotions. In this case, the film has received acclaim for blending realism and magic realism when telling its picture.
Positives:
- Strong Lead Performance: Nykiya Adams portrays Bailey wonderfully well, and it is her first movie, so hats off to her for such great acting.
- Emotional Resonance: Thus, the target demographic is observable to be adolescents who can identify with the challenges depicted by the film.
- Visual Aesthetic: Through the beautiful aperture of the cinematography of Robbie Ryan and the direction from Andrea Arnold, those will be able to get the full feel of Bailey’s life.
Negatives:
- Pacing Issues: A few antagonists pointed that out some scenes were quite boring in the sense that they seemed to drag on and on and this could drag the attention of the audience with them.
- Predictable Plot Elements: However, emerging, some or most of its turns may be clichéd or stereotypically within the coming-of-age genre.
- Underdeveloped Supporting Characters: Quincy and Torrance are characters who viewers perceive as plausible but villains could have used some more development to make an even greater difference.
Technical Aspects:
“Bird” is filled with complicated techniques that could efficiently enhance the narration. The technique of filming is modern, however, it was tried to tell a story using motion picture techniques that were used hundreds of years ago.
Key Technical Features:
- Cinematography: Some cinematography done by Robbie Ryan will establish close contact between two actors as well as equally big shots of the city to help emotional investment.
- Editing: Directed by Joe Bini, the film is well-paced throughout providing, however, the scenes that could be shorter in length could have been trimmed.
- Sound Design: A few popular hit songs are used in the score; moments, where they play, add mood but don’t overpower dialogue or narration, and emotions are added to key scenes.
Performance:
The work is characterized by the good acting of the leading actors. Nykiya Adams plays Bailey and does so with grace, making the audience enter the personal process of growth and strength. Bug is well played by Barry Keoghan and Although the character suffers from a lot of problems the actor’s portrayal of wanting to provide for his family is depicted.
Notable Performances:
- Nykiya Adams as Bailey: For most of this movie, she manages to portray the frailty of her character as well as her strength in her search for companionship.
- Barry Keoghan as Bug: Keoghan plays dark in his portrayal of a father fighting with his evil disposition while providing for his kids.
- Franz Rogowski as Bird: Rogowski gives a quite ambiguous performance which only enriches the watcher’s experience of his character’s communication with Bailey with mystery and sexual attraction notes.
- Jason Buda as Hunter: Buda delivers a good performance in which we witness Hunter’s qualities of being protective of his sister given their blurred home circumstances.
Moviepoptime Review:
‘Bird’ resembles Andrea Arnold’s previous film ‘Fishtank’ where a young woman endangers herself severely while attempting to escape loneliness and spousal abuse. In this new work, Arnold concentrates on pre-teen Bailey who lives in a hopelessly messy squat with her dek and an older brother. Her father Bug intends to marry a crazy new lady while her mother is a heroin addict who similarly lives in equally squalid circumstances with an abusive boyfriend, Bailey’s numerous poor young siblings, and a dog named Dave. While mothers and other authority figures appear in Bailey’s world, they are all portrayed as more or less incompetent, so the girl has to navigate life on her own.
After arguing with Bug, Bailey tailed a gang of street kids involved in some random act of lawlessness. After escaping from the police and sleeping in the field she gets waken up by a horse and then she meets a kilted man named Bird. This strange vagrant was bred in the county, raised in another part of the country, and is searching for a father he hardly knows.
Bailey hesitates for a second before deciding that he will help him. Nykiya Adams is spirited and lifelike as the focal character in Bailey’s complex search for Bird and his interweaving of another errand, two diversions as well as other tangent plots. But her seemingly random strolling leads her to the moment of enlightenment which is represented in one of the scenes which looks like a fantasy sequence yet the movie remains documentary-like. What kind of magician is Arnold that she can turn her New York City melodrama into this potent and vivid concern?
Conclusion:
More so, “Bird” can be narrowed down as a well-rounded coming-of-age drama screenplay that offers a look at identity, family, and growth while located in an imaginatively constructed story. As supported by Nykiya Adams and Barry Keoghan, and having a good technical utilization under the direction of Andrea Arnold, this film will likely strike audiences watching for meaningful stories in between the entertainment.
Despite these criticisms, early reviews suggest that, while it might betray some familiar patterns within its structure, and even come across as somewhat rhythmically off in several scenes ‘Bird’ presents the audience with an empowering look at the possibility of overcoming adversity that asks the audience to think about their own experience of love and companionship.
When eventually it is released on the big screen on November 8, 2024, “Bird” is certain to bring fun and also make them think about the struggles of childhood in unfavorable conditions. Truly human and sensuously beautiful, Bird offers hope and belief that the meaning of life could be built even in the down moments and stresses that every quest for finding oneself is important.
Also Read: Spirit in the Blood Movie Review