naturalism

If it’s too much to ask of Arnold that her bid for heightened naturalism make a ton of sense, “Bird” at least maintains a heartbeat of ache and affection for youth in all its rudeness, revealing a filmmaker who isn’t afraid of losing her claws if she traffics in the thing with feathers.

But it also reminded us that naturalism is only one thread in the multi-hued fabric of Williams’ playwriting.

I loved the characters, major and minor, and how their eccentricities sit in a bed of naturalism.

Striking a fine balance between lurid voyeurism and grounded naturalism, Mäkelä’s film is a gripping wonder, perhaps a tad too literate, with its nods not only to Ellis but to authors like Jean Genet and Cyril Collard.

It’s what gives this compassionate, cautiously hopeful movie’s open-eyed naturalism a wonderful, pulsating humanity.