Benedict Cumberbatch

David Thewlis

Sam Spruell

Vinette Robinson

Leo Bill

Garry Cooper

Jessie Cave

Adam Basil

Lizzie Clarke

Tim Plester

Dwane Walcott

Eric Lampaert

Kevin Howarth

Pierre Bergman

Max Porter

Lesley Molony

Claire Cartwright

Nandi Bhebhe

Mat Wright

Rimca Karmakar

Richard Boxall

Henry Boxall

Steve Paget

Adam Ackland

Andrea Cornwell

Leah Clarke

Nicole Hicks

Dylan Southern

Mia Bays

Lee Broda

Thomas R. Burke

Ben Coren

Sierra Garcia

Patricia Lawley

Adrian Politowski

Morwin Schmookler

Sean Wheelan

Ben Fordesman

Shaheen Baig

Suzie Davies

Elena Real-Davies

Charlotte Dirickx

Sophie O'Neill

Conor O'Sullivan

Wakana Yoshihara

George Cragg

Jessica Laws

Joe Payne

Sophie Graham

Joakim Sundström

Per Boström

Dean Wares

Heikki Kossi

Zebedee Budworth

Drama

The Thing with Feathers

Film4 Productions

SunnyMarch

Lobo Films

Film i Väst

Align

LB Entertainment

United Kingdom

CinemaSerf

Whilst we don’t know exactly what happened, we quickly discover that a father (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his two young sons (Henry & Richard Boxall) are recovering from the fairly traumatic death of their wife/mother. Dad is trying to put as brave a face as he can on daily life as he tries to keep the kids motivated at home and at school and whilst he continues his work as an animator for a darker, more adult, market. Things start to take quite an ominous tone at his increasingly disordered home, when he begins to hear things, to see things - and a crow he has been drawing seems central to those visions. For us watching, it is pretty clear what the purpose of this bird - in it’s more erect and cruelly verbal manifestation - actually is, but of course he is completely oblivious as the film splits into chapters for dad, the sons and even the bird itself as we explore the concept and profound impact of grief. The two Boxall lads deliver their part really quite engagingly, but it’s really the tour de force from Cumberbatch that makes this worth the watch. His character is struggling to come to terms with his loss, and though certainly not neglectful of his family his attempts to compartmentalise his feelings, to shield the boys from the excesses of his desperate emotional state and, for that matter, to immerse himself in a world of professional escapism fuelled by Scotch are really quite powerfully delivered by an actor who genuinely comes across as a man completely lost. The representations of the feathered spectre introduce quite a degree of psychological menace, even violence, and these also contribute to the general sense of exasperation that this man, and to an extent his sons, experience as they are just old enough to be cognisant of the disaster that has hit them all, but not of it’s longer term ramifications. The soundtrack also adds an effective element of melancholy and frenzy at times, and I was frankly quite surprised at my own level of investment in this family’s predicament as this moved on. Maybe not a film to watch if you are a recent survivor of the grieving process, but otherwise it takes a different slant on the topic, and is worth a look.