Bird

Twelve-year-old Bailey lives with her father (Barry Keoghan) and older brother in a squat in a small town in south-east England. Her dad informs her that he is getting married next Saterday. He will spend the next few summer days - unlike most grooms - mostly preoccupied with his quest for drugs. Meanwhile, Bailey becomes acquainted with a peculiar figure she meets in a field, the mysterious Bird (Franz Rogowski). A bond develops between the two and this helps Bailey confront her younger siblings who stay with her mother, whose boyfriend is synonymous with mischief. With Bird, British Andrea Arnold directs her first fiction film in eight years. She has not lost the typical social realist touch - seen in films like Fish Tank and American Honey - on the contrary, Arnold's cinema remains raw and authentic - even if she throws some magical realism into the mix for the first time. Once intimate then biting again, Bird is cinema on the cutting edge.