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05/06/2025

Review of Bird - Andrea Arnold’s Magical Touch in a Marginal World


By Sandra M. Ríos U
X: @sandritamrios

Review of Bird: Andrea Arnold’s Magical Touch in a Marginal World. The British director portrays Bailey’s adolescence in Gravesend, amidst family chaos and nature. A magical friendship with an enigmatic man reveals identity and hope in a reflective coming-of-age story.

Andrea Arnold’s film begins with a pair of images: a young girl recording birds flying with her phone and then trying to interact with a seagull that approaches her. The British director starts her scripts this way, with an image that comes to her mind, and from there, she builds the universe of her story and characters, starting from the core and ending with the beginning.

For Bird, the image was of a man perched at the top of a tall building. This figure is the character that gives the film its title, and Arnold took magical liberties that give this story a unique touch in her filmography, while insisting it not be described as magical realism.

As with several of her films (something she says is entirely unconscious), the protagonist is a 12-year-old teenager living in a squat in Gravesend, Kent, with her father (Bug), a still very young, eccentric, and immature man, and her older brother. Amid a chaotic, disordered, and impoverished environment, Bailey now has to tolerate her father bringing his girlfriend to live with them, whom he will marry in the coming days after a three-month relationship.

In this oppressive environment, with a father who seeks to control his daughter and impose his will, Bailey searches for adventure on the streets with her brother’s violent friends and with a mysterious, solitary man named Bird, who is trying to reconnect with his roots by locating his mother. This leads them to form a strange and free friendship that gradually reveals a sense of identity and belonging, amid an implicit metamorphosis of Bird, which serves as a metaphor for the protagonist’s transition from childhood to adolescence.

Gravesend, a coastal city, becomes an additional protagonist in this story. Arnold once again explores British marginality, contrasting it with the warmth of its inhabitants, as a symbol of empathy and hope for a better future (don’t miss the end credits).

Like Mia in Fish Tank (2009) and Star in American Honey (2016), Bailey is a rebellious and curious teenager seeking spaces that comfort her, yearning for a corner that connects her with the beauty she observes. In this sense, Bird, beyond the companionship and support she craves, also represents the inner world of this character, who seeks calm and silence in nature, the grass, the bees, or the butterflies that cross her path.

Andrea Arnold provides little information about Bird, instead endowing him with ambiguities, allowing the viewer to fill in his life and connect with a figure that feels almost angelic. These narrative gaps are filled by the performances of Franz Rogowski as the enigmatic character and Barry Keoghan in an unusual role as the father.

Bailey’s inner journey transcends her private universe, also delivering a message about the beauty of small, everyday things, with her deep connection to nature, as seen in a scene with a fox and a crow. Animals and landscapes in Arnold’s filmography are mirrors of her characters’ emotions but also symbols of redemption, magic, and freedom. They become elements that propel them to move forward and overcome their disappointments, whether by leaving home, like Mia, embracing uncertainty, like Star, or finding a new perspective on life and family, as Bailey does in this film.

Free of all interpretation, as the British director intentionally crafted it, Bird ultimately leaves the feeling that nothing is as bad or terrible as it seems. It will be in Colombian theaters on May 15.

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