Toads who sweat hallucinogens, lonely pre-teens and a sudden German in a kilt: Arnold’s pick’n’mix latest dives as much as it soars

Andrea Arnold’s flawed, garrulous new movie is a chaotic social-realist adventure with big, chancy performances, grimly violent episodes, tragedy butting heads with comedy and physical existence facing off with fantasy and imagination.

It meditates on identity and belonging, the poignancy of not being valued, not being seen, the transition from childhood to adulthood, girlhood to womanhood, sexism and cruelty. The energy and heartfelt good humour offset the moments of cliche and implausibility.

Barry Keoghan plays Bug, a lairy bloke who is over the moon at his imminent wedding and his foolproof idea for easy money: he has imported from Colorado a certain kind of toad whose slime is a powerful (and expensive) hallucinogen. It’s just that the toad needs the right kind of soothing and yet upbeat music played to it, before it starts sweating out the good stuff. And what track does Bug like? Andrea Arnold couldn’t resist it: Murder on the Dancefloor. Perhaps every Keoghan film from now on is going to have a Saltburn gag.