Are we running out of ways how to articulate the multifaceted nature of grief? For the record, I see why such a malleable emotion is enticing to be adapted into art. You can apply it to any genre: comedy, drama, and in Dylan Southern’s “The Thing with Feathers case, it’s more horror-leaning. The nature of grief itself is terrifying from the standpoint of losing something and that imprint casting a shadow over you until the end of your days. No matter how far you get from it, it will creep up on you when you least suspect it. That’s why we have these stories (and methods like therapy) so that we can realize that they are okay. “The Thing With Feathers” gets to that point eventually, but it is unclear what the most effective road to get there is. 

Benedict Cumberbatch plays a recent widower down in the doldrums of sadness and tries to keep it together for his two sons (played by Richard and Henry Boxall). The house they occupy is unkempt, stained with the memories of the father coming home and finding his wife deceased. The death feels sudden and abrupt. Even worse is that an explanation or warning signs before it happened weren’t there. Nevertheless, a void exists within Cumberbatch’s character, whether for the love he lost or trying to pick up the pieces as a parent who may have taken things for granted.

As a comic book artist, the father has understandably hit a bit of a creative rut. With that, pictures of crows are abundant throughout his drawing space. As the days go on, he has nightmares of a gigantic, life-like crow standing upright. Eventually, an eight-foot manifestation of that Crow (voiced by David Thewlis) moves into the real world as a mode of tough love. Crow says it’s here to help, but more of a Mickey-to-Rocky style motivation than being comforting. 

If anything, Crow taunts Cumberbatch’s character for wallowing in sadness to the point of not being the most effective father he can be. At least at first, the more compelling parts of “Feathers” exist, even if they tend to repeat themselves. The more compelling elements of the film are anchored by Cumberbatch’s performance as a man who is clearly at the end of his rope. Anytime it feels like he’s getting ahead, there’s something to remind him of the woman he’s lost and the children who need someone to serve as a compass through the fog. The father himself doesn’t know how to get through the day, and having a fantastical character hurling insults at your valid sadness doesn’t help matters either. As the insults start to wane, “Feathers,” in part, becomes more of emphatically working through the hard places. 


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The film undergoes a shift in narrative perspective (Max Porter’s novel “Grief is the Thing with Feathers,” on which this adaptation is based, is told in four parts), where the audience sees the world through the eyes of the two boys. It’s a good way to show the complexities of grief through children in how they see older people experience it and within themselves. The two swim in sadness in unique ways that the film touches on. However, the humanness of that breaks down once Crow becomes involved. It would have been better if “Feathers” explained some of the rules regarding reality because there’s a scarcity of information about how Crow is interlinked between the three characters.

Does it appear to the children because they are themselves experiencing loss as a family or there to taunt the father? That is not entirely clear. While “Feathers” is rooted in being an emotional drama with horror elements mixed in, Southern hard shifts into jump scares and other modes of imagery meant to shock you. Coupled with another demonic element introduced later, it displaces the film — morphing into something you would find in the “Insidious” franchise.

It’s as if “Feathers” lacks confidence in you getting what the theme is. Cumberbatch’s character undergoes a whole physical transformation as he indulges the urge to draw the bird he’s seeing. We can tell that they are two halves of the same whole. If you feel Crow is a metaphor for Emily Dickinson’s poem “’ Hope’ is the Thing with Feathers,” that’s precisely what Porter was trying to get at. The film also understands this, but gives into the bombastic expectations of what theatrical horror is expected to be.

“The Thing With Feathers” premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.