From Sundance: ‘The Thing With Feathers’ Falls Prey to Its Overarching Metaphor

An amorphous, tall, black creature stalks a widowed family in a foreign film about grief featuring self-reflexive children’s books that comment on the film’s narrative. Although this premise might sound familiar, it isn’t “The Babadook” but “The Thing With Feathers,” adapted from a novella by Max Porter and starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Cumberbatch plays the widowed father who grapples with grief in the form of an eight-foot-tall crow voiced by David Thewlis.

First and foremost, this film is gorgeous. Shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio, every scene feels claustrophobic, harrowing, and character-driven. As Cumberbatch’s character works drawing comics, the audience is given a beautiful first-hand look at ink hitting paper and taking shape. In one stunning scene, Cumberbatch knocks over his inkwell and black splotches dominate the screen. He uses his fingers to brush a crow into form while rapid cuts enforce a terrifyingly crazed pace.

While “The Babadook” takes a more subtle, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it approach to grief, “The Thing With Feathers” is inextricably tied to Cumberbatch and his two boys’ grieving processes. Closeups of Cumberbatch crying, overhead shots of him restless in bed, and tracking shots of him lost in the rain are prevalent — to the point that the crow’s dialogue about defeating “clichés” seems lost on the filmmakers. Putting a giant humanoid crow in the background of a shot, just like being self-aware about one’s own “clichéness,” does not negate that clichéness; instead, it comes across as annoying and pretentious.

Story should always take precedence over metaphor, which is why films like “The Thing With Feathers” are almost always doomed to fail. Metaphors are a good way to bolster a story, but they rarely effectively function as the crux of one. Nevertheless, “The Thing With Feathers” tries, with a cast of characters including Mum (Claire Cartwright), Crow (Eric Lampaert), Boy 1 (Richard Boxall), and Boy 2 (Henry Boxall). Unsurprisingly, very little defines these generic archetypes other than their shared grief and family ties.

The film, like the book, is separated into parts, including “The Dad,” “The Crow,” “The Boys,” and “The Demon.” These first two parts are enthralling, as the Dad navigates his relationship with the elusive and terrifying Crow. “The Thing With Feathers” doesn’t shy away from horror tropes, embracing flickering lights, open windows, narrow corridors, and out-of-nowhere jump scares. The Crow’s towering figure and hyperrealistic animatronic costume make for the perfect horror movie villain. Thewlis’ voiceover doesn’t disappoint either, which can quickly turn from threatening to paternalistic and back again.

But it’s this paternalistic side of the Crow that causes “The Thing With Feathers” to drag into its third act. The movie is so desperately caught up in committing to the stages of grief and creating an ambiguous relationship between the Dad, the Crow, and the Boys that the forward movement comes to a standstill, and a cycle of anger and apology repeats itself without any real consequences for the characters.

Eventually, the Crow loses its horrific edge, becoming a source of comedy at the expense of the Dad. The filmmakers’ solution to this problem was to create a bigger, more amorphous figure for the Crow to fight, and have it represent despair. But bigger and more amorphous doesn’t always mean better; this copycat character — known as the Demon (Adam Basil) — doesn’t hold a candle to the Crow, and the audience knows it. Breakneck action sequences between the Crow and Demon are interesting to watch but lack the necessary tension and momentum to make the moment truly meaningful.

No amount of narration or montages can effectively bridge the divide between film and poetry. Despite being a technical marvel, “The Thing With Feathers” falls prey to its abstract premise and source material.

—Staff writer Joseph A. Johnson can be reached at joseph.johnson@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @onlyjoejohnson.