Last night, I found my way to the Vancouver Playhouse to see the final screening of Bird at the Vancouver International Film Festival. The Playhouse provided a unique and average viewing experience – the seats were uncomfortable; the screen needed an upgrade. But Bird was on my list of movies to see at the festival because Barry Keoghan is in its supporting cast. I am happy to report that the acting throughout Bird is the movie’s strongest asset.
However, Keoghan was not the movie’s strongest performer. His character was complex, with a keen sense of humour and a strong belief in self. Keoghan’s acting was earnest, yet I found it difficult to separate the actor from the celebrity. Between the Manchester United collaboration, the GQ cover shoots and dating Sabrina Carpenter, Keoghan’s star is beaming stronger than ever. In The Banshees of Inisherin, he was a newcomer with a fascinating face and deep eyes, and, in Saltburn, he backed it up with a memorable leading-man effort. In Bird, Keoghan still pulls from his prismatic well of emotions, but I felt that he was still coming to grips with his newfound lifestyle and that was seeping into his work. Ideally, celebrity status is shed before acting. The harshness was gone from behind his eyes, even though he plays a character that had a presumably harsh upbringing. In Bird, he has scenes that are stronger than others and he is playing the character with, perhaps, the most complex persona in the whole movie, but I cannot say that this performance tops what we saw in Saltburn and Inisherin.
Franz Rogowski, the German national, delivers the strongest performance as Bird’s titular character. His character is bizarre, innocent and transformative. It is his character’s story that the audience is the most invested in. To receive it, we must follow the movie’s main character, Bailey, played by Nykiya Adams, who, unfortunately, does not evolve very much and is largely a canvas for the dreams of Rogowski’s Bird and Keoghan’s Bug to spew onto.
Adams is quite good as Bailey, but the character’s arc provides the movie with its pacing issues. Two people walked out of the movie behind me and, if I were watching this movie at home, there’s a chance I would have shut it off early too. Although the ending is rewarding, and the setting is interesting, the music is good and the side characters are complex, the story of this little girl growing into her womanhood while asserting her independence is exhausted in 2024. Her cutting her hair, putting on makeup and getting her first period are not exciting setups – they’re simplistic plot points for a girl’s coming-of-age movie. It is when the movie leans into its side characters’ quests – Bird looking for home, Bug and his frog – that Bird really takes off.
I could not find the names of some of the actors in this movie, which was surprising, but the depth of acting quality in this movie is outstanding. Jason Buda plays Hunter, a kid who wants to grow up too quickly. His climactic scene at the train station with Keoghan is especially poignant. The young girls who played Bailey’s sisters were great as was Hunter’s friend who slyly has a crush on Bailey.
The setting is exciting, and it is one of the drawing points that vie for the audience’s attention. It’s a graffiti-soaked England, where the kids are drinking, and the 20-somethings already have kids and no future. It’s an underbelly that allows for some great, realistic and punk shots, like the opening montage as Bug and Bailey zip through the ends on his electric scooter.
Bird is a heartfelt movie, with some exciting storylines and characters. It does come full circle, if the viewer can stay focused through some discerning pacing problems.
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