Newcomer Nykiya Adams was studying for her GCSEs when casting director Lucy Pardee (Aftersun, Rocks, Fish Tank) discovered her at school in Essex. The upshot is Adams now stars as 12-year-old Bailey in Andrea Arnold’s return to fiction filmmaking with Bird after making the documentary Cow. It’s a tenderly crafted drama that dips into poetic magical realism.

Bailey, who is on the cusp of childhood and adolescence, lives with single dad Bug (Barry Keoghan) in a Gravesend squat. His attention is focused on upcoming nuptials with a woman he has known for three months and a get-rich-quick scheme involving a psychotropic toad. It’s somewhat of a chaotic upbringing for the headstrong Bailey whose restless spirit is guided by Bird (Franz Rogowski) who mysteriously appears to her one day as she ponders where she belongs. 

Speaking just before the London Film Festival premiere of Bird, teenager Adams (who has been nominated for a British Independent Film Award) is in an excitable mood: ‘I’m nervous but I know I’m gonna look good. My mum is dressing me!’ Her mother Jade sits with us; her warmth and pride at her daughter’s success illuminates the office space in which we meet.

Though Bird explores domestic and gang violence, it also glows with hope. Eschewing kitchen-sink social realism, the film is a vivid portrait of modern youth, family, escapism through creativity and coping mechanisms which pays gorgeous tribute to the pursuit of love. Every character is searching for home in some way. Arnold confided in Adams about her own childhood growing up on an estate in Kent, and Keoghan has likened the family in the film to his own upbringing. 

‘The area I live in is similar to the film,’ says Adams. ‘It’s not rough but it’s not great to grow up in. I had a good childhood but the area was a bit questionable. Family in general is a difficult thing to talk about because no one family is the same. I could relate to Bailey in so many ways. She is like a more extreme version of myself. I wouldn’t go out of my way to cut my hair, but I wish I could rebel in the same way she does. I wish I had her braveness; the way in which she’s so confident in sorting things out for herself.’

Adams only met co-star Rogowski (who takes on the titular role of a man who has entered the UK to find his biological family) on set in their first scene together. ‘When Bird is introduced in the film is the first time I met him,’ says Adams. ‘It was a real reaction, not acting. At the time Bailey was getting used to him was the same time I was getting used to him. They found peace in each other. That’s what I found most beautiful about their bond.’

Bailey spends time filming nature and her surroundings on a smartphone and sharing it on social media, while her step-brother Hunter (Jason Buda) uses technology as a way to enact vigilante violence. Adams herself uses TikTok regularly but mostly to film her and her best friend dancing or when she’s socialising with mates in the local park. 

Though Bug is a young father, the difference in how he and Bailey engage with the digital world is miles apart, as is their taste in music. Talking of the film’s soundtrack, Adams notes that ‘“Yellow” by Coldplay was my favourite song… listening to it reminds me of the film. The rest of the stuff Bug listened to were dad songs!’

Bird is in cinemas from Friday 8 November.