For two decades, Andrea Arnold has been a singular voice in cinema. Her worldview is unblinking, often showcasing the challenges and difficulties of working class life in Britain. Even when the circumstances facing her characters are bleak, she embraces empathy, with visual language and storytelling centred around closeness, evoking the intimacy of relationships through intricate, textured detail.

In Bird, her latest and arguably most hopeful feature, newcomer Nykiya Adams plays 12 year old Bailey, who lives with her siblings and young father Bug (Barry Keoghan) in a large squatter’s building in Kent. The house is chaotic, with graffiti and cans on every surface as well as neighbours who enjoy getting stoned and showing off their new snake in the middle of the day. Bailey is constantly trying to escape into her surroundings, wandering through local fields, disappearing into her phone or wistfully watching the birds soaring high above the madness.

Other kids around her are trying to find a place for themselves in more destructive ways; Baileys’s half-brother Hunter (Jason Buda) has joined a gang of wannabe vigilantes who viciously attack locals with bad reputations, using chat apps and phones to organise and the film the attacks, which involve masks, hammers and knives. Bailey tries to follow along, but runs when things get nasty.

Arnold has once again teamed up with Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan to create a handheld, constantly moving visual style and in the opening scenes of Bird, Ryan expertly captures the frenetic chaos swirling around Bailey. As Bug, Keoghan is an explosion of energy, bursting into every room and scene with an irrepressible, uncontrollable vitality that is both entertaining and exhausting. Covered in tattoos, he takes Bailey on races throughout town on his electric scooter, weaving and dodging traffic and pedestrians. Manic, mischievous, occasionally menacing and importantly, still so young, Bug seems to love his children like siblings or adult mates, rather than kids in need of security and boundaries. He announces that he’s going to marry his flame of three months and plans to finance the wedding by selling a toad’s hallucinogenic slime - the latest in a line of impulsive decisions with life-changing consequences for Bailey, leaving her furious and unmoored.

In her state of uncertainty, Bailey wanders into a field and bumps into the enigmatic Bird, played by a captivating Franz Rogowski (Passages). A gentle and ephemeral creature who frolics through meadows in flowing skirts, Bird is unlike anyone Bailey has ever met – particularly the other men who surround her, whose masculinity veers between youthful posturing, domineering or dysfunctional, and terrifyingly violent. Bird brings a slowness to Bailey’s world, helping her connect to nature by reminding her to notice how beautiful the sky is. Bird’s habit of hanging out on top of buildings lets Bailey gain perspective on the world she lives in, instead of feeling lost in the current of it. Ryan’s camerawork lingers when Bird is present, capturing this calming, otherworldly quality. Bird is searching for his parents, and as Bailey helps him, we get more insight into her life and the very adult situations she has always been forced to manage.

Bird holds many parallels to Arnold’s 2009 drama Fish Tank by focusing on a girl living amidst dysfunctional family dynamics, grappling with what it means to get older, important interactions with animals, and an older character who bursts into their life bringing transformation. While Fish Tank ends on a difficult note, Bird is much more hopeful. Arnold plays with genre in a way she hasn't before, taking it away from her trademark, sometimes bleak, realism in a way that will prove divisive to some, and life-enhancing to those who embrace it. There’s humour too – Saltburn fans will notice a little wink towards Keoghan’s previous role, and Bug’s shenanigans lead to a hilarious scene featuring Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’ that must be seen to be appreciated. The presence of Coldplay’s sentimentality is deliberate and knowing, and as usual, Arnold’s use of music throughout the film works on different levels, showing us what the characters listen to and are surrounded by, and the often quieter sound of their emotional landscape.

There’s a fable-like quality to this film with how it depicts the ways we survive and transcend, and the things we turn to when the people around us fail to be a source of safety. While its tone may not capture the hearts of more cynical viewers, I believe – particularly in a week where we have watched America choose danger, cruelty and bleak, bleak realism – that a little bit of transcendence, art and imagination is a gift to be accepted from Andrea Arnold with thanks.

• • Out Now. Check out the trailer below: