Despite a committed central performance by Benedict Cumberbatch, 'The Thing With Feathers' doesn’t do justice to Max Porter's powerful novella.
Grief is the gutting of the soul.
Grief is love with no place to go.
Grief is a revealing force.
Grief is a tricky thing to get right on the big screen.
Adapted from Max Porter’s astonishing debut novella “Grief Is The Thing With Feathers”, British writer-director Dylan Southern’s big screen adaptation takes a fantastical yet deeply relatable story of loss and transforms it into a one-note cinematic fable that is just about salvaged by one of Benedict Cumberbatch’s best performances.
The central conceit sees an unnamed father (Cumberbatch) devastated by the sudden death of his wife. A seemingly malignant presence in the form of a giant crow (voiced by David Thewlis) begins to stalk him in the house he shares with his two boys (Richard and Henry Boxall).
Is the graphic artist losing his grasp on reality, or has an uninvited house guest really burrowed its way into the family’s fractured existence?
If you’re coming to The Thing With Feathers with a healthy appreciation for the source material – and if you were lucky enough to watch Cillian Murphy in the stage adaptation – this cinematic take on Porter’s story will frustrate more than haunt. To its credit, the film sticks closely to the chapter-like sectioning (Dad, Boys, Crow and Demon), but something is missing here. Aside from the word “grief” in the title.
For those coming in blind, there’s plenty to admire, specifically Ben Fordesman’s horror-coded cinematography and Cumberbatch’s stellar performance. Whether he’s fighting off despair through some serious wallowing and whiskey-fuelled dancing, Cumberbatch manages to convey the full emotional scope of a mourning father losing his ability to communicate and struggling to hold his family together. The way he delivers lines like “you had an amazing mum” with his voice gently cracking is nothing short of heart-wrenching.
Sadly, Cumberbatch’s committed turn goes up against on-the-nose needle drops (The Cure’s ‘In Between Days’ and the dirty blues of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins are always welcome but are utilised far too literally), as well as a feathered beastie who is given far too much screen time.
In the stage version, Cillian Murphy played both Dad and Crow and this dédoublement worked wonders; here, the beaked Babadook may have been unavoidable as an on-screen presence, but the macabre depiction of grief would have fared better as either a possessed doppelgänger or a more enigmatic golem. Had the figure been kept more shrouded, the central motif and metaphor would have been stronger. As it is, every time Corvus makes a prolonged cameo, you’re praying for some wing clipping.
That said, Thewlis does deliver the goods with his sinister line delivery of “humans are incredibly dull except in grief” and “you’re such a cliché – you’ll have the photo album out next!”. However, the anthropomorphic crow becomes a far too heavy-handed manifestation that not only drains nuance from the punishing process of healing, but can’t emerge from the shadow cast by Jennifer Kent’s spookier - and more finessed - embodiment of trauma.
Southern clearly understood the novella’s concept but transposing it onto the big screen comes with a checklist of cinematic conventions that eclipse some of the source material's most heartrending moments. The viewer just ends up pummelled into submission by a nobly-intentioned effort that isn't as profound or as radical as it could have been.
The Thing With Feathers is out in cinemas now.
