The questions of a grocery store clerk at checkout don’t usually prompt much soul-searching, but Bird (Alisha Wainwright) does have to wonder who she is after she’s sized up as a “health food person” from the items she’s about to buy in “Bird in Hand,” an idea completely at odds with how she views herself. Yet here in the countryside where her mom Carlotta (Christine Lahti) lives, the stuff she’d buy in her native Brooklyn is made to feel exotic. There are definitely reasons she doesn’t leave the city often, but when her boyfriend Frank (Paul Reynolds) is said to want a wedding in more idyllic surroundings, it makes practical sense for Bird to look for a locale amongst the palatial estates that surround her mother’s humble farm, but nonetheless disorienting when it’s never felt like familiar territory, given the fact Carlotta has been known to move on from places – and people – and has never provided an entirely satisfactory answer about her father who disappeared shortly before her birth, creating an absence no matter where the two lived.
The idea of settling down becomes deeply unsettling in Melody C. Roscher’s cunning feature debut, not only for Bird who is thrown into an identity crisis she’s put off for a little too long, but also for audiences that the writer/director never lets get too comfortable. It starts when you’re led to believe Bird has gotten married on a few different occasions in the film’s opening minutes, first following her into a brownstone in a wedding gown that is revealed to be merely a Halloween costume — even soaked with fake blood, it gives Frank the idea she should put on one for real — and a subsequent wedding video turns out not to be of her own nuptials either, but surfacing during the search for a band presumably to play it. You figure the third time must be the charm when she shows up at Carlotta’s house ready to spend the week scouting potential venues, but in what is learned to be a fair indication of their relationship as a whole, find a place to simply stay the night is a challenge when her mother isn’t home, nor willing to drive the three hours back to give her a key.
Bird is somewhat understanding when not only is the behavior expected, but as Roscher is careful to embed in the character she has somehow internalized that selfishness as part of her own attitude and at first, it seems like “Bird in Hand” will be about how she has taken after Carlotta while not wanting to resemble her at all. However, the writer/director is after something larger when Bird traverses former plantations as a biracial woman in search of a place to get married as well as digging around the house her mother shares with a new beau Dale (Jeffrey Nordling) for clues about her biological father, all to get a handle on who she is before she can move forward with her life.
Some scenes about the broader racial politics at play can seem too big to take on with the amount of time they’re given as Bird is pulled into the orbit of Leigh (Annabelle Dexter-Jones) and Dennis (James Le Gros), a pair of landowners down the road whose generosity seems suspect as they try to rewrite the history of the property. But when buckling down on Bird’s specific sense of self with a particularly strong performance from Wainwright and her growing uncertainty causes her to become more erratic, the film is riveting as it follows suit structurally, becoming completely unmoored from where it started out and like its heroine, remains completely composed by all appearances but goes a bit gonzo as a search for answers pushes her to extremes.
The increasingly outrageous turns the film takes may be the stuff of comedy, but Roscher, who was once a part of the producing team behind cerebral dramas such as “Simon Killer” and “James White” at Borderline Films, delivers as rigorous a psychological investigation as anything she produced for other directors and as it unfolds in the daylight, “Bird in Hand” can seem downright subversive as it peers into dark corners. Surprises are not only a part of the storytelling, but the personal reaction they inspire when it feels like the limits of your own curiosity about others is constantly challenged, with one especially large information dump late in the film as blindsiding for what it reveals as what was failed to be noticed in the first place when characters like Bird are typically left on the margins. Fortunately, Roscher has a far more acute eye than most and while Bird can’t sometimes see the forest for the trees, there’s an impressive recognition of what it’s like to be in constant search of your roots.
“Bird in Hand” will screen again at the Tribeca Festival at the Village East on June 7th at 2:45 pm, June 8th at 12:15 pm and June 11th at 2:15 pm.