BLUEBIRD

Several intertwining stories synthesize an authentic tableau of blue-collar Americana. In a snowy Maine town, the cold seems to penetrate people’s bones, as well as their tempers. The film’s characters mostly trudge through unsatisfying lives, which become disrupted when a little boy is left in a school bus overnight and discovered the next morning with severe hypothermia. The adults responsible for the tragic event –the bus driver who, distracted by a bluebird, didn’t check the vehicle, the neglectful mother– and the ones close to them, see their lives unravel. Bluebird is an astute character study as well as a subtle, atmospheric portrait of a universe under pressure, in which the presence of a delicate flying creature can tip the fragile balance that changes lives in seconds.