'Bird' has similarities to Andrea Arnold's earlier film 'Fishtank' where an alienated teen put herself in serious danger while trying to escape loneliness and domestic dysfunction. In this new work Arnold focuses on pre-teen Bailey who lives in a chaotic squat with her father and an older brother. Her dad Bug is planning to marry his kooky new girlfriend, while her troubled mother lives nearby in even more squalid conditions with a violently abusive boyfriend, a clutter of Bailey's younger siblings and a long-suffering pup called Dave. None of the adults in her universe seem capable of providing much guidance, leaving Bailey to chart her own course.
Following a row with Bug, Bailey shadows a gang of street kids engaged in some random criminality. After evading the police, sleeping in a field and being awakened by a horse, she encounters a kilted stranger called Bird. This eccentric itinerant had been born in the area, raised elsewhere and is trying to find a father he can scarcely remember. After some hesitation, Bailey decides to help him. Nykiya Adams delivers a courageous and convincing performance in the lead role as Bailey's pursuit of Bird's quest mingles with other digressions, distractions and sub-plots. Her apparently aimless wanderings eventually arrive at a revelatory moment which is depicted in an extraordinary passage where the film briefly departs from gritty realism and enters the realm of the fantastic. Somehow Arnold pulls off this trick, transforming her urban drama into an intense and memorable fable.
