Bird
Synopsis
Day after day, 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) projects on her bedroom walls the moments of easy-to-miss beauty she’s forever filming on her phone. Bailey is a born artist, but to find that path, she’ll need to scale some obstacles: a young, unsteady father (Saltburn’s Barry Keoghan), marrying yet again and full of get-rich-quick schemes. A peer group flirting with petty crime. A housing project designed to curb imagination. Life is hardening Bailey by the hour, so it’s a surprise when a soft-spoken, gender-bending stranger named Bird (Franz Rogowski, Passages) alights in her ‘hood, offering friendship while investigating his own painful past. Could this childlike free spirit be Bailey’s guide into a happier life? Or is Bird more complicated than that?
Director Andrea Arnold, a past award winner at the Chicago International Film Festival and at Cannes, returns to the world of hardscrabble adolescence she so vividly explored in Fish Tank and American Honey, both modern classics. But Bird also sees Arnold fly in new directions, blending fiery first-timers with famous faces in her cast, probing further into fluid identities, and scouring the dead ends and concrete jungles of Bailey’s world for new possibilities of grace and redemption.
Screenings & Events
Screening
Sat, Oct 19 @ 12:00pm CDT
at Gene Siskel Film Center, screen 1
- Assistive Listening Devices available
- Audio Description
Screening
Sat, Oct 26 @ 8:00pm CDT
at AMC NEWCITY 14, screen 06
- Closed Captions
- Audio Description
Digging Deeper into Movies with Nick Davis
Sat, Oct 19 @ 11:00am CDT
Join Northwestern Professor and film critic Nick Davis for an interactive conversation before the Oct 19 screening of Bird. Free and open to the public.
Note: Film screening and discussion are separate events. You must purchase a ticket to the screening to attend the screening.
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Media
Film Credits
- Lee Groombridge, Tessa Ross, Juliette Howell
- Barry Keoghan, Franz Rogowski
- House Productions