The Thing with Feathers review – a bruising but rewarding watch

Comic books have been good to Benedict Cumberbatch. Being cast as a contemporary Holmes in TV hit Sherlock may have made him a household name but it was his even haughtier turn as a supreme sorcerer in Doctor Strange and five more Marvel Cinematic Universe movies that made him a Hollywood superstar.

His ability to mime fizzing firework circles with a straight face has probably allowed him to afford some notable additions to his collection of fine art.

So it seems fitting that almost a decade after donning the swirling cloak of Stephen Strange, Cumberbatch is playing an actual comic book artist. But while The Thing with Feathers sounds like it could be a Fantastic Four adventure where orange rock monster Ben Grimm gets genetically spliced with a flamingo, it is something much darker, distressing and, indeed, stranger.

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

It is about a young London family who have just unexpectedly lost their mother. Cumberbatch is the father, spiralling from existential shock and struggling to maintain even the simplest domestic routines. His two young sons – played by real-life brothers Henry and Richard Boxall – are at an age where they cannot fully process what has happened but know that Mum is abruptly gone and that Dad is short-circuiting.

It opens late on the day of the funeral. Dad holds it together while ushering the boys off to bed but then ruptures into tears on the family couch. It is an early indication that while the mood of The Thing with Feathers is deliberately foggy – it is hard to keep track of time, and we never learn the name of Dad or the boys – it is a film unafraid to drill into the rawest of emotions. 

Read more:

• ‘You know my politics’: Benedict Cumberbatch reflects on these strange times
• Cillian Murphy: ‘There’s this massive imbalance where the most important people can’t afford a house’
• Daniel Day-Lewis is coming out fighting: ‘Any time Brian Cox wants to talk… I’m easy to find’

One horrible certainty about death is that life goes on, so we see Dad attempt to survive the fraught breakfast battleground required just to get his kids to school on time. He deals with the well-meaning but obtrusive condolences of near-strangers while also keeping family and friends at a distance. There is also the small matter of the graphic novel Dad is on deadline to deliver, although his scratchy charcoal sketches and splashy experiments with jet-black ink seem to usher in a vampiric new house-guest.

This is Crow, a hunched, sooty and rather Mighty Boosh-y apparition who haunts Dad’s mind seemingly just to taunt him: a literal mocking bird. Voiced with velvety menace by David Thewlis (the equally unsettling physical performance is by Eric Lampaert), Crow is the invasive thought to end all invasive thoughts, dragging all of Dad’s selfishness, pettiness and despair into the light to mercilessly peck at them.

As familiar domestic scenes lurch into nightmarish visions, it’s clear that Dad’s grip on reality is fraying. But being put through the emotional wringer by the cheerfully malicious Crow seems to be having more of an effect than the bland bullet points of his grief counselling sessions with a well meaning but rather wishy washy therapist.

For all the occasional flashes of catharsis, contending with Crow remains a harrowing experience, one that Cumberbatch admirably throws himself into. His deeply caring but occasionally frustrated relationship with the boys feels lived-in to the extent that when Dad does snap at them it seems like something irreplaceable is about to be smashed (the young Boxall brothers deserve equal praise for their naturalistic performances in such a heightened milieu). 

“I thought it would get easier,” confesses Dad after the first few months, but things only get worse.

With its artful blending of poetry and prose, Max Porter’s 2015 debut novella Grief is the Thing with Feathers was an atypical bestseller that clearly resonated with a wider audience. Existing fans will know when they approach writer-director Dylan Southern’s well-crafted screen adaptation that they are in for a bruising ride.

It is a respectful take on the source material but one that should perhaps come with an advisory, suffused as it is with all the unexpected, unflinching ways that grief can slice your heart open like a filleting knife or render you so numb that you start to fear you may never feel anything again. 

Just so long as viewers feel physically and mentally fortified for the experience, it will likely be a rewarding one.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more.

Change a vendor’s life this Christmas.

Buy from your local Big Issue vendor every week – or support online with a vendor support kit or a subscription – and help people work their way out of poverty with dignity.