The Thing with Feathers Movie Review

This movie portrays the sorrow of the sudden death of a woman, the horror in the lives of those she left behind, grieving their loss.

A man has lost his wife; his two sons have lost their mother. The three are filled with grief due to her death. No one has been able to move on. They don’t know how, nor do they know what that looks like. Does it look like a big black cloud in the shape of a crow hovering over them for the rest of their lives? Maybe it needs to for a while before they can see sunshine again.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays “Dad” in this story written and directed by Dylan Southern, from the novella “Grief Is the Thing with Feathers” by Max Porter. When Dad takes the children to school, the house is finally empty. He’s alone, he cries. Where there’s a window, there’s a crow knocking to get in. A crow? Not hard to figure out what he stands for. Later that night, there’s a scene that hits you like a ton of bricks where Dad reads a story to them before bed. Pay attention to what he’s saying here.

It isn’t far from this point that the movie turns very dark. “Sad dad,” as he’s referred to on a disturbing phone message, is wallowing in his memories. A crow wants him to say hello. Is this normal? Is he mad? The crow finds humans “dull,” but motherless children interest him since they’re good victims. Their crow can’t be real, so is it Dad who sees people, especially his children, as dull; no longer appealing. Maybe, in his reluctance to move on, he has become a bad dad.

The boys see his change. He’s a different kind of dad, as he becomes to them what the crow is to him. Death, which we see manifest as dark figures in our minds or standing before us, is tearing our house apart. Dad’s not sure of his mental stability but he should be tending to theirs. He needs to see to their wants and needs. He better because one by one, the crow, voiced spectacularly by David Thewlis, is devouring this family. It gets to him by saying things such as, “Your wife’s not a ghost. You’re the ghost.” To the boys, he is, but he tells Dad, “There are far worse than me.”

The story this is based on is very poetic, and Thewlis’ voice can’t be improved on for this role. He has the ability to sound like friend and foe alike, making it impossible for the heartbroken father to know how to handle the antagonistic black-feathered avian. Could this black creature be the spirit of his late wife, who abandoned her family? Dad’s a writer. Through a book he was writing, he found a way to work through grief, but he has lost a lot. The image of a crow holds this family together. You can’t help but wonder what finally did. Did he make Dad finally face the pain? Did he just awaken from a stupor? Whichever, the crow did his job, as the last words he utters to the man are, “As you were, English widower.” And he does. Fantastic. See this at the theater if possible. This is very odd, I’m not going to lie, but if odd is your jam, this will be, too.