movie review
THE THING WITH FEATHERS
Running time: 104 minutes. Not yet rated.
PARK CITY, Utah — Another title for “The Thing With Feathers,” which premiered Saturday night at the Sundance Film Festival, could be “The Giant Talking Crow.”
Because, despite Benedict Cumberbatch’s fragile and aching performance as a widowed dad of two young boys, the bird is the word. The actor is constantly upstaged by his pesky Crow-star, who’s meant to be the anthropomorphic embodiment of dad’s grief, but is really just a massive, ridiculous distraction.
Director Dylan Southern’s mournful drama, which is spiked with horror elements and a hint of Henson, is an adaptation of Max Porter’s acclaimed novel “Grief is the Thing with Feathers.” And a mistake. The source material explains the underlying issue.
A menacing Big Bird, an unabashedly poetic concoction, works as a literary device enhanced by the reader’s imagination. Regardless of the film costume’s neat, tactile design, the Crow is a laughable onscreen presence in an otherwise tenderly acted family drama.
With David Thewlis’ deep, husky voice, and “f—k”-filled dialogue that has the Crow mock Birkenstocks among other dumb modern barbs, the character, who tormented Dad hears in his head, comes perilously close to being the alien symbiote from “Venom.”
Before Crow flies in and beats up Benedict with his beak, Cumberbatch’s comic book designer — just called Dad — is struggling to take care of his two little sons after the sudden death of their mom. Making breakfast is like rocket science, and the house is becoming a free-for-all pigsty.
Dad can barely function, triggered into tears by any mention of his spouse, when the avian bro arrives to taunt and shake him up. After the Crow breaks into Dad’s home and takes humanoid form, events become more evocative than literal. Or, really, comprehensible.
The artist obsessively draws the Crow and begins pecking and making bird noises, a la “The Black Swan.” His erra behavior is creepy and, I suppose, suggests that sadness has overtaken him. He’s becoming woe, blah, blah, blah.
Cumberbatch goes all-in on his performance in voice and physicality. He can be large and freaky or whisper-quiet and touching; frightfully angry or falsetto broken. And he has a sweet fatherly rapport with the two boys who play his kids, Richard and Henry Boxall.
His committed turn is undone, though, by the creatures around him. In the end, when Dad makes friends with his grief — I repeat: blah, blah blah — the Crow cuddles with him and the boys on the couch. A bizarre image, to say the least. Crow also gets into a loud, Marvel-like fight with a demon that is nothing short of confounding.
Exploring pain in novel ways in film is a good thing. Next time, though, pick a different novel.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land ’
