Arnold’s feral, fantastical drama set in the rundown Kent of her childhood stars remarkable newcomer Nykiya Adams as a marginalised child who makes a strange new friend

Andrea Arnold’s films have a thrilling, entirely distinctive energy. Take her US-set American Honey (2016), with its itchy, restless outlaw spirit and music used front and centre, or the earthy fervour of her 2011 version of Wuthering Heights . The British director’s films are feral, unpredictable and untameable, informed by empathy, curiosity and a way of working that embraces chaos and discovery. With its marginalised milieu and themes of the wildness within, Bird , which earned an impressive haul of British independent film award nominations last week, could only be an Andrea Arnold creation.

In some ways, though, it’s also a notable departure for this continually evolving film-maker, who returns to the UK – specifically north Kent, where she grew up and later set her short film Wasp – for her first fiction feature since American Honey . The most obvious change is the fantastical element. Having long inhabited the gritty, social realist end of the spectrum, Arnold ventures into magical realism for the first time. If, like me, you’re somewhat allergic to the genre in its more twinkly and whimsical forms, fear not: this version has teeth.