Mixed-race Bailey is just 12 years of age, and has only just had her first period,. She exudes the confidence and the determination of an adult. She boasts that she is no longer a virgin. belongs to the local gang of vigilantes (who violently punish the local wrongdoers), and is always ready to confront her caring however sexist and overbearing father Bug (Barry Keoghan). Her mouth is big and her tongue as sharp as a razor blade, and she never shies away from slamming his wife-to-be Kayleigh (Frankie Box). Her slightly older and equally cocky half-brother Hunter (Jason Buda) is the final member of the household. They live in a council flat jungle somewhere in suburban London. She holds a grudge against her mother Peyton (Jasmine Jobson), who shunned her and now lives nearby with her smaller children and with her brand new, abusive partner Skate (James Nelson-Joyce).

One sunny day in the local park, the eccentric Bird (played by chameleonic, lisp-voiced German actor Franz Rogowski) flies into her life. He does not seem to have an abode, does not own a mobile phone, and has a spark of sadness printed into his eyes, despite a vivacious body language. He dons a skirt and flaps his wings like a flying creature. He is in search of his biological parents, who mysteriously disappeared from his life when he was a child (it is never clear how that happened, in one of the plot holes in the story). He becomes some sort of magical whitey: a sounding board for the protagonist, his mystical powers allowing Bailey to find balance and redemption. Despite bearing the film title, Bird is a secondary character, that exists almost entirely in relation to our little rogue heroine.

Interestingly, Andrea Arnold does precisely the opposite of what she did in Cow (2021). Three years ago, the Dartford-born filmmaker humanised an animal of the female gender (namely a bovine). This time, she animalises human beings of the male sex. Bird, Bug, Skate, Lamb: several men are named after creatures from the animal kingdom. And they behave primitively, in a pattern one would normally associate with less intelligent creatures. Bug is fickle and aggressive, at times borderline rabid. Bird moves like a pigeon, often perching on the roof and fluttering his arms as if he was about to take off. The real animals in the film have far more noble functions: the dog provides judgment and security, the crow offers carrier services, while the frog supplies hallucinatory thrills. These beastly inversions are delicious to watch

This is a very British and very relatable film, bursting with authenticity, and just the right amount of magical realism. Crafting social realism isn’t a particularly easy task for a movie featuring various established and recognisable stars. Arnold achieved this in 2009 with Michael Fassbender in Fish Tank, and she does it again this time with Keoghan and Rogowski. The punk-indie-emo soundtrack includes Blur, Verve and Coldplay, some of our nation’s biggest household institutions. There is some funny and peculiar intertext, as Arnold references other British films: there is a joke about Murder on the Dance Floor being a “shit” song to dance (a quip about Keoghan’s naked dance in Emerald Fennels’s Saltburn, last year’s commercial hit), while a potential drowning in the marshes seems to allude Arnold’s own Fish Tank.

While narratively fluid and coherent, Bird has just too many subplots. Bailey’s rejection of her father’s marriage, Bailey’s dysfunctional relationship with her mum, Bailey’s maternal connection to her smaller siblings, Bailey’s vigilante life, Hunter’s relation to a prematurely pregnant Moon, Bird’s search for his long-lost family. That’s just too much fluidity. The excessive number of stories waters down the film’s ability to engage and move a little bit. The also applies to the music: while energetic and engaging, it’s just too pervasive. And at just one minute short of two hours, Bird could do with a little trimming. Still, a very British emotional tour-de-force. Realistic and inventive. A must-see.

Bird just premiered in the Official Competition of the 77th Cannes International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. Andrea Arnold was a very special guest this year at the event, with her debut feature Red Road showing in a parallel strand. The film premiered here nearly two decades ago, in 2006, the same year social realist filmmaker Ken Loach won his first the Palme d’Or with The Wind That Shakes The Barley. It did not produce the same achievement. In cinemas on Friday, November 8th.