‘The Thing with Feathers’ Review – Benedict Cumberbatch Battles Familiar Grief Monster Metaphor [Sundance]

Director Dylan Southern’s melancholic dark fantasy drama, The Thing with Feathers, doesn’t exactly set out to scare, but it is cut from the same cloth as The Babadook and similar grief metaphor horror movies. The adaptation of Max Porter’s acclaimed novel Grief is the Thing with Feathers stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a newly widowed father so lost in his overwhelming grief that it manifests in the form of a monstrous, talking Crow voiced by David Thewlis. Despite the effectiveness of Crow’s acerbic nature and creature design, this grief metaphor languishes too long in its suffocating sorrow.

The story introduces Cumberbatch’s grief-stricken cartoonist, credited simply as “Dad,” just after he’s buried his wife, who died suddenly and unexpectedly. Her absence leaves an unfillable hole in the family’s life and disrupts their routine to a catastrophic degree. Adjusting to single fatherdom, raising two interchangeably rambunctious young sons presents a slew of painful and frustrating struggles that only exacerbate Dad’s grief. When time refuses to heal any of Dad’s wounds, haunting visions of a crow suddenly become more imposing and sinister. Soon, Dad begins to pour himself into his work and disassociates as the menacing Crow plagues the home and threatens to destroy a family that’s barely hanging on by a thread.

There’s a strong visual element to The Thing with Feathers that threatens to inject life into an otherwise dour affair. Creature and Prosthetics Designer Conor O’Sullivan (Alien: Covenant, Prometheus) channels Tim Burton with his eight-foot-tall talking Crow, a pitch-black gnarled beast prone to hurling frank insults at the brooding father. The more Dad spirals out, fracturing his relationships in the process, the more Crow inserts himself in their lives in pervasive, discomforting ways. But Southern is more interested in Dad’s wallowing, favoring slow, quiet scenes of Dad drowning out the world to The Cure or lashing out at his children over parental woes. 

Feathers stagnates so thoroughly in this exhausting, though emotionally authentic portrayal of profound grief that not even an eerie, imaginative third act turn straight into horror territory can liven things up. A sequence centered around a demon and a front door evokes chills but comes too little too late. It’s also around here where Crow’s role evolves, but not even Thewlis’s infectious snark can infuse this wonderfully rendered creature with much in the way of characterization. Crow isn’t the only one devoid of depth either; Dad’s two transposable sons are treated solely as empty vessels for Dad’s emotional journey.

Just as Feathers ramps up, it winds down with a tidy, optimistic conclusion that doesn’t quite feel earned compared to the flat, protracted depiction of loss and despair. Southern adapts Porter’s novel with poetic elegance, and Cumberbatch commits fully as a widower paralyzed by loss. But Feathers is too restrained emotionally for its stagnant and familiar depiction of a family tormented by grief turned into a literal horror show. It’s handsomely crafted and well-intentioned, but The Thing with Feathers gets crushed under the tedious weight of another empty grief monster metaphor.

The Thing with Feathers made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Release info TBA.

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