Twelve year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) is having a bit of a rough go of it. Living in a squat in a housing estate in Kent, her father Bug (Barry Keoghan) is barely an adult himself, running around with the kind of wild get-rich-quick schemes a teenager would come up with (becoming a father as a teen seems to have arrested his development).
Her mother, who lives across town, isn't much help either. Peyton (Jasmine Jobson) has a violent partner and three kids, living in the kind of knife-edge situation where anything can happen and whatever it is, it's going to be bad. Bug's crazy plan to sell toad juice to finance his wedding to a woman he met three months ago doesn't seem so bad by comparison.
So Bailey is largely left to her own devices. Sometimes she's spending time with her half-brother Hunter (Jason Buda) and the gang he's put together to "protect" the neighbourhood. Other times she's on her own, which is when she meets the mysterious Bird (Franz Rogowski).
At first she's wary of this stranger who seems lost and searching for something. It doesn't take long for a bond to develop, but this is the kind of coming-of-age film where tragedy is just as likely as anything else - or at least, it is until a big shift in what kind of film we're actually watching makes itself known towards the end.
The result is something that isn't going to click with everyone. Consistency in entertainment is generally a virtue; any major gear changes are required to exist within the borders of plot and character, not by adding entirely new elements previously unsuspected. So this is a big swerve, but if you can go with adding "magical" to "realism", the pay off is worth it.
And even if you feel the ending does derail things, there's a lot to enjoy. The performances, often from newcomers, are frequently astonishing and consistently enthralling, while Arnold has lost none of her skill when it comes to steeping her audience in a world where struggle and deprivation don't automatically mean a bleak existence.
It's a swirling film, full of joy and grinding poverty, despair and the beauty of nature pushing through ruins. Whether it's fully successful or not we need more films like this, heartfelt and striving.
- Anthony Morris