Award-winning children’s author Karen Cushman’s 1994 novel Catherine, Called Birdy is getting the big screen treatment, though it might not be precisely what fans of the original expect. Long a pet project of Girls creator Lena Dunham, filming on Catherine Called Birdy wrapped last year. With the Newbury Honor-winning book offering promising source material, the finished product looks to be a major draw for kids and teens at cinemas this fall.
Director and producer Dunham, who also adapted the novel for the big screen, was interviewed earlier this month by Variety and said that in spite of its period setting, the story speaks well to audiences today about the role of women and the issue of bodily autonomy. The critics certainly seem to agree, with a slew of almost uniformly positive reviews flooding in since its premiere in Toronto a fortnight ago. So what is all the fuss about? Here’s the lowdown on what to expect.
Catherine Called Birdy: The Plot
Catherine Called Birdy is a coming-of-age film set in thirteenth-century England. Catherine – the ‘Birdy’ nickname refers to her pets – lives in the English village of Stonebridge with her older brothers and parents. She reads and writes, is going through puberty, and is indignant at the prospect of being married off to a faceless stranger.
The fly in the ointment is that her parents, minor nobles, happen to be short of cash. To retrieve the family fortunes, Catherine’s father decides to do just that and announces that suitable bachelors may ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Cue the arrival of a succession of suitors of all shapes, sizes, and abilities, as well as a flurry of increasingly outlandish attempts by Catherine to convince each in turn that she is not the sort of girl they’d want to have for a wife.
The film looks lavish but dispenses with notions of historical authenticity in favor of laying on the comedy with distinctly modern-sounding sensibilities and dialog. The soundtrack – a mixture of orchestral work and covers of pop songs by Britpop and other assorted artists – alongside the casting of the perennially affected Russell Brand shows just how disinterested Dunham is in making the film into a simple period piece. Nevertheless, the weird amalgam of modern anachronism and medieval social fabric works splendidly on its own terms and ensures audiences don’t hear much in the way of thees, thous, and thines throughout.
Catherine Called Birdy: The Cast
Heading the cast as Catherine is Bella Ramsey, an English actor whose first screen role was Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones. Since her departure from the series in 2019, she has been in constant demand, with supporting roles in World War Two drama Resistance, the BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, and as the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey in the Starz Tudor period drama Becoming Elizabeth earlier this year, in addition to voice work on last year’s Hilda and the Mountain King. A further voice role in Aardman Animation’s long-awaited sequel to 2000’s stop-motion hit Chicken Run, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, will follow early next year on Netflix.
The role of Catherine’s father, the ineffectual, bumbling Lord Rollo, is played by Andrew Scott. Scott’s aptitude for playing disreputable or villainous roles was confirmed by his casting opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock as Jim Moriarty. In recent years his work has expanded to include such roles as Anthony Julius – the celebrity solicitor hired to defend Professor Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) in the infamous Holocaust libel trial – in Denial (2016), a British Army lieutenant in Sam Mendes’ 1917 (2019), and Lord Merlin in The Pursuit of Love (2021).
The part of Lady Aislinn, Catherine’s doting mother, is portrayed by former star of Doctor Who and Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Billie Piper, whose return to the big screen after her successful sojourn in West End theater continues. An appearance in Netflix’s Coming Undone, an adaptation of author Terri White’s best-selling memoir about her struggles with abuse and mental health, is anticipated next year.
The supporting cast consists of a mixture of character actors with bona fides in period dramas and fantasy series, including Game of Thrones alumni Dean-Charles Chapman and Ralph Ineson, Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), and Mary Queen of Scots star Joe Alwyn.
Release Date
Catherine Called Birdy received its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month to favorable reviews, and a British premiere followed in London on September 20th. Cinemagoers will have the chance to see the film in theaters for a limited period from September 23th, and the film will be available for streaming on Prime Video from October 7th.
