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The Thing With Feathers Is a Creepily Effective Meditation on a Family’s Grief

The Thing With Feathers Is a Creepily Effective Meditation on a Family’s Grief
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Dylan Southern’s The Thing with Feathers is a chilling departure for the documentarian behind Shut Up and Play the Hits and Meet Me in the Bathroom. His grief-stricken creature feature adapts Max Porter’s moving novella “Grief Is The Thing With Feathers,” itself referencing Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope is the thing with feathers.” Literary whimsy flows through the project’s DNA, yet Southern’s screenplay shaves storytelling into a more rigid tale of familial loss. Benedict Cumberbatch is an unsurprisingly strong anchor as a widowed father whose ink-black drawings of a crow character become too real, but the film’s inescapably sorrowful themes beat viewers over the head with a bit too much force.

Cumberbatch is credited as “Dad,” an English graphic novelist left overwhelmed after the death of his beloved wife. His “Boys,” played by brothers Richard Boxall and Henry Boxall, are now single-parent siblings. Their home is in utter chaos without its matriarch; the glue holding everything together has vanished. After Cumberbatch’s well-meaning father blazes through a few “failing dad” tropes like burning breakfast toast and failing to enforce bath time, an intimidating crow entity appears (voiced by David Thewlis). Should dear old dad fear the beady-eyed visitor, or listen to its bleak wisdom before something worse comes calling?

Southern’s intentions are caught between beastly horrors and searing melodrama. Eric Lampaert physically portrays a midnight-colored bird monstrosity that looms over Cumberbatch, complete with claw-like talons and a pointed beak. Yet, the Crow isn’t there to harm his human targets — he’s a helpful, healing force. What’s easily perceived as an instant villain by haunted genre standards is a misdirect, or more appropriately, the on-screen manifestation of grief. Southern doesn’t want the crow to scare us away as its philosophical and therapeutic presence becomes known. Frustratingly, that won’t matter to viewers who succumb to tonal confusion invited by darkened fantasy imagery used in an unexpected way.

That said, The Thing with Feathers doesn’t feel at odds with itself. Crow’s emergence as this Babadookian “Trauma Horror” villain quickly fades into a curious coexistence, where Cumberbatch’s performance shines. As Thewlis mocks “Sad Dad” for being a whiskey-slugging, distancing cliché of an “English Widower,” Cumberbatch starts acting more crow-like. The fantasy and reality of Crow’s existence become a constant battle within Cumberbatch, who throws himself into the eye of grief’s treacherous storm. He’s toying with common tropes of loss, self-sabotage, and depression, but his outbursts are earnest, and his brokenness organic. The crowy attributes play almost like a possession arc, adding genre perilousness to already gripping dramatic weights.

Although, The Thing with Feathers cannot avoid feeling creatively at odds. Crow’s raspy take on supernatural therapy can juxtapose Ben Fordesman’s traditionally horror-coded cinematography. There are these wonderful shots of Cumberbatch frantically penciling macabre comic panes while Crow’s shadow looms behind, but in full view, the practical creature design loses a bit of the bite. Sound design emphasizes fast-paced jump scares, yet there’s a strangely calming effect to Crow’s presence after initial appearances. There’s nothing reinvigorating about the themes in play; they’re standard Hallmark “father must grieve and protect his children at the same time” fodder, so you have to be fully invested in Crow’s gimmick. If you’re not, Southern’s film will be just another confounded genre experiment.

The Thing with Feathers can be a rich and somewhat bizarre experience about processing trauma, accepting death, and moving on. The Boxall boys stay in step with Cumberbatch’s in-pain papa and have their fun when Crow babysits. There’s something peculiar yet entrancing about Crow’s interactions that works as a guardian angel sent from Hell, which allows Cumberbatch’s performance to be about the mess that’s laid bare, not only the positives of getting better. Thewlis’ raspy voice fits Crow’s ominous chuckles, while Lampaert’s embodiment brings Crow to life, whether dancing to records or storming make-believe castles. There’s an imaginary friend type of relationship afoot that isn’t bulletproof but still intrigues, which sustains Southern’s sometimes scattershot and definitely more straightforward adaptation of Porter’s ideas.

As movies like The Babadook and Hereditary ushered in the “Trauma Horror” movement, The Thing with Feathers feels like a fitting outro as the genre transitions into a new era. Dylan Southern’s non-documentary feature debut proves you can still find fresh angles on recognizable storytelling, but the finesse required to excel under emotionally terrifying conditions remains a challenge. Cumberbatch does phenomenally, and there’s this warm, fable-like fantasticality about Crow’s gallows bluntness that carries Southern’s film. The Thing with Feathers wraps us in the wings of grief as we fall into its nastiest depths, and lifts us out with gothic hopecore appeal.

Director: Dylan Southern
Writer: Dylan Southern
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Boxall, Henry Boxall, David Thewlis
Release date: Jan. 25, 2025 (Sundance Film Festival)


Matt Donato is a Los Angeles-based film critic currently published on SlashFilm, Fangoria, Bloody Disgusting, and anywhere else he’s allowed to spread the gospel of Demon Wind. He is also a member of the Critics Choice Association. Definitely don’t feed him after midnight.

 
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