Broken Bird (2024) Review

Broken Bird (2024) Review

BROKEN BIRD marks the feature directorial debut of Joanne Mitchell, who for nearly 15 years has honed her craft as a horror storyteller. BROKEN BIRD is a feature film adaptation of her & Tracey Sheals’s 2018 award-winning short SYBIL, screenplay by Dominic Brunt.

At just ten years old, she experienced trauma in a tragic accident which took away the family she adored. Now, an aching loneliness prevails in a void which she seeks to fill. But poetry and a vivid imagination provide an escape from the harsh realities of a lonely life.

Reality and reason are slipping away from Sybil and her ‘dark desires’ become more and more insatiable. Her fascination with the dead takes a dark and strange twist. And in a horrific climax of gothic proportions, she finds her own kind of happiness and contentment with the people she keeps as company – dead people.

BROKEN BIRD has been favourably received by critics and it is not difficult to see why. The production values are top drawer – especially the film’s cinematography – and the performances all hit the right notes with Rebecca Calder, as Sybil, the ‘broken bird’ of the title, being both sympathetic and unhinged in equal measure.

Unfortunately, I found BROKEN BIRD to be a distinctly average gothic comedy-horror. There are two separate story strands – Sybil’s affection for a young man takes a turn for the macabre when he ends up dead, and that of a divorced police detective still not knowing what happened to the body of her deceased child – that never quite meld and instead hang off each other awkwardly.

BROKEN BIRD opened this year’s FrightFest with its World Premiere on 22nd August and will be coming to UK cinemas 30th August.

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