Love is a hustle.

The long-awaited return to fiction filmmaking from Academy Award-winner Andrea Arnold, Bird is a tender, striking and extraordinarily surprising coming-of-age fable about marginalized life in the fringes of contemporary society.

12-year-old Bailey (astounding newcomer Nykiya Adams) lives with her devoted but chaotic single dad Bug (Barry Keoghan, Saltburn) and wayward brother Hunter in a squat in Gravesend, north Kent. Approaching puberty and seeking attention and adventure, Bailey’s fractured home life is transformed when she encounters Bird (Franz Rogowski, Passages), a mysterious stranger on a journey of his own.

Our second November Volunteer of the Month is Hiroki Funahashi, who has chosen Ruben Ostland’s Force Majeure as his VOTM pick.

The film follows a Swedish family on a ski vacation in the French Alps. During lunch at a mountainside restaurant, a controlled avalanche appears to threaten their lives, and the father, Tomas, instinctively flees, abandoning his wife, Ebba, and their two children. The avalanche stops short, but the family is left to grapple with Tomas’ reaction, leading to tension and deep introspection about his role as a protector and the underlying dynamics of their relationship.

Everyone’s a Puppet

Our next In Defense Of entry comes courtesy of our Marketing Director Bekah Phillips, who has chosen Thomas Schlamme’s 1993 black comedy So I Married an Axe Murderer!

Just after a bad breakup, Charlie MacKenzie falls for lovely butcher Harriet Michaels and introduces her to his parents. But, as voracious consumers of sensational tabloids, his parents soon come to suspect that Harriet is actually a notorious serial killer — “Mrs. X” — wanted in connection with a string of bizarre honeymoon killings. Thinking his parents foolish, Charlie proposes to Harriet. But while on his honeymoon with her, he begins to fear they were right.