Director: Andrea Arnold

Stars: Nykiya Adams, Barry Keoghan, Franz Rogowski, Jason Buda

Andrea Arnold exhibits her usual keen, empathetic eye for council estate life in this slightly overstuffed drama. Impressive newcomer Adams is Bailey, a biracial girl growing up in a squat in Gravesend. Her reckless wannabe drug dealer dad Bug (Keoghan), who is planning to marry his new girlfriend, has just acquired a toad from South America which he believes will secrete hallucinogenic slime which he can sell to the locals. In the film’s funniest passage Bug announces to his pals that the toad is more likely to deliver if they play it ‘sincere’ music, Coldplay and Blur and the like, rather than the hip hop they favour. Meanwhile, Bailey’s brother Hunter plans to elope with his partner, unbeknownst to Bug. While visiting her mom, now in a relationship with a violent partner, Bailey encounters a strange eccentric vagrant type, Bird (German actor Rogowski) who claims he is from the area and in search of his father. The combination of social realism and the mythic brings to mind Clio Barnard’s ‘The Selfish Giant’ but this lacks that picture’s fable-like simplicity with a narratively cluttered script. Scenes with the enigmatic whimsical Bird do not quite come off despite the efforts of the estimable Rogowski. Barry Keoghan is vital a presence as ever, but some of his scenes, particularly ones that nod to earlier films, border on self-indulgent.

David Willoughby

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