Grief is messy. Anybody who’s been through it – few of us will escape – knows the closest thing to a rule book is the decision to handle it your own way, whatever that may be. Confronted by this painful chaos from the very start in Dylan Southern’s The Thing With Feathers, we’re thrust into what starts out as a potentially radical and challenging approach, but then mixes it with a helping of horror. Ironically, the result is almost a mirror image of the emotion and experience at its core.
After the death of his wife, the unnamed Dad (Benedict Cumberbatch) is in pieces, struggling with the simplest of everyday tasks – the toast is regularly burnt – and the demands of caring for his two young sons. Holding on to his work as a graphic artist as the only constant in his life, he works on a comic book with a huge crow as the central character, but the bird becomes a metaphor for his grief, taking over his life, taunting him yet somehow tapping in to his agony and even providing a protective wing on his shoulder.
Max Porter’s original novel, Grief Is The Thing With Feathers, was inspired by the author’s own experiences after the death of his father when he was a child, and that authenticity translates with ease to the big screen. Anybody watching who has lived through the loss of a loved one, a partner especially, will find at least one moment in the film that resurrects the most deeply buried of memories. But the very fact that the film captures this aspect so well makes it all the more conspicuous and frustrating that it generally takes such a conventional, even superficial, approach. Fantasy, reality and horror never truly come together to form the cohesive whole it’s aiming for and, while the narrative is more at home with the reality, the horror when it emerges is perfunctory and unconvincing.
It’s a movie of missed opportunities. As Dad loses his grip on reality, the film loses its grip on us, especially when the crow evolves from a real bird invading the house to a larger version which, even as a figment of the imagination, clumsily undermines our involvement in the concept at the core of the story. Thankfully, those scenes are saved by the rasping tones of David Thewlis as the bird’s voice, by turns sardonic, mocking and unexpectedly compassionate. Visually, there’s a similar problem, with the film opening in black and white showing the vigorous sketches of the crow and raising expectations for the rest of the film. But it’s replaced by colour in the blink of an eye, so the fantasy and atmosphere that initially grabbed our attention is all but gone. It’s sorely missed.
The cast, however, do keep us watching. Alongside Thewlis, Cumberbatch is in constant agony as the artist father, finding it near-impossible to deal with his own grief while keeping life as normal as possible for his sons. As played by Richard and Henry Boxall, they’re both superb, sad one minute, unable to understand what’s happening around them the next and then challenging their father’s authority with an innocent brutality only a child can muster. But even their considerable efforts can’t quite give the film the consistency and spark of originality it cries out for. Instead, it’s overly ambitious, constantly trying too hard and ultimately, leaves the audience cold.
The Thing With Feathers screens at the London Film Festival on 11th and 12th October. It is released in the UK and Ireland on 21st November.
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