After a tragic loss, a grieving father tries to raise his young sons while dealing with an unlikely, unpredictable, and uninvited houseguest.
This film is an adaptation by Dylan Southern of the novel ‘Grief is the Thing with Feathers’ by Max Porter. Knowing this, it might have been helpful to audiences if Southern had kept the book’s full title for this project. He must have deduced that audiences are educated and knowing, and no obvious “hints” about the soul of this work were necessary. I’m in my eighties, and my brain has certainly slowed. It took me about an hour of discussion with a theatre friend to reach some conclusions about my understanding of the metaphors and messages contained, both subtly and brazenly, in the film.
“The Thing with Feathers” obviously references a bird, and the bird in question is a crow that makes its appearance constantly. It harasses the Dad unmercifully, often both menacing and frightening. We learn quickly that Dad, played brilliantly by Benedict Cumberbatch, has lost his wife suddenly, leaving him beset with grief and with two young boys who are now motherless. He is pulled into emotional chaos as he struggles to manage his own feelings of loss and despair while at the same time comforting his boys, beautifully portrayed by brothers Richard and Henry Boxhall. When he tries to put a face on his extreme emotional chaos, he comes up with the face and figure of a crow. He draws it over and over as evidence of how grief has a hold on him that he cannot break. The crow eventually becomes sometimes human-sized, sometimes bird-sized, and at other times, we see only its shadow and its claws threatening Dad’s hold on reality.
The choice of the crow figure in this film is not incidental. Crows are among the most intelligent of birds. They can recognize and remember human faces. They live in a family/flock that is called a murder. They can make and use tools and even hold funerals for their dead. In many cultures, crows are seen as messengers who bring a pathway forward for those grappling with extreme emotions. A crow, as “a thing with feathers,” recognizes the despair engulfing Dad and the deep sorrow of his boys, who have not only lost their mother but now are slowly losing their father to grief.
The film is a 104-minute fight for life after loss. The crow fights to temper Dad’s grief. The struggle is frightening, and the metaphor becomes real. I was reminded of the five stages of grief outlined by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book ‘On Death and Dying.’ Denial and anger are the first stages, and they are evidenced quickly by Dad’s actions. This film rests on Cumberbatch’s shoulders as the Dad. The Boxhall brothers, as the sons, are natural in their portrayal of the sad and bewildered children in need of comforting and reassurance, but receiving it not from their devastated father.
Cumberbatch is the film’s saving grace. His emotional displays are real and carry the story. Richard and Henry Boxhall support his performance. Then there is the problem of the crow. The bird is too realistic, which takes away its mystique. Better to see only what is necessary to portray the crow: an eye here, a beak there. I loved the shot of the crow with his wings around the boys in comfort, but all that was needed was to include just the wings in a close-up shot: less realism, more mysticism.
“The Thing with Feathers” is thought-provoking, to say the least. After it is over. The realism and oversizing of the crow often made it seem like a sci-fi or horror film. It’s also a bit long, even at just 104 minutes. Or, maybe it just seems long. I’m not sure.
In Theaters Friday, November 21st
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