[Forster] and screenwriter Mark Bomback marry the handsome production to directorial and script choices that, for all their attempted restraint, lean toward the obvious, the blatant, and the sentimental.

With elegant acting from its two young leads and picturesque cinematography from Matthias Koenigswieser, it serves as a competently executed morality play for audiences craving a bit of unambiguous humanism.

Forster’s steady direction keeps this thread of White Bird affecting even when it conforms to predictable narrative beats.

With its message of how we must “use the light within ourselves to stop the injustices of today”, White Bird perhaps has even greater resonance now than it might have done back when it was first supposed to debut in September 2022.