Crows rustle in Dylan Southern’s fiction feature debut, the haunting story of a middle-aged man coming to terms with the sudden and unexpected death of his wife, the mother of his two boys. In terms of genre, it’s hard to place, sitting somewhere between social drama and heightened horror; if Ken Loach dreamed up The Babadook, it might look something like this. Southern—previously known for such heady, experiential and you-are-there music docs as Shut Up and Play the Hits (2012) and Meet Me in the Bathroom (2022)—brings the visceral immediacy of those films to a very raw and emotional subject matter. For all the artistry behind it, however, The Thing with Feathers will likely prove divisive; for survivors of trauma, it will likely be cathartic, but for others more fortunate, its pitch-perfect portrayal of loss might be a touch too uncomfortable.
This is one of those films where the characters don’t have names, so the father is simply Dad. Played by Benedict Cumberbatch, he is an artist of sorts; some people call his work “comic books”, others call them “graphic novels”, a term he thinks is “wanky”. His output is alluded to in the film’s atmospheric credit sequence, in which a restless, scratchy charcoal pencil attacks white paper, the claustrophobia of which is intensified by the director’s intimate use of Academy ratio. Random, sombre words accompany the images of black-feathered birds (“Sad Dad”, “She’s gone”), so it’s not much of a surprise when the screen turns black and sound design takes over, economically depicting an unseen funeral.
“I thought you both did really well today,” says Dad to his two young boys, subtly confirming the truth that we, already, would rather not know. Even if he hadn’t said it, the cinematography and production design are on top of things; this is a house that is missing something. A happy family home should not be lit like a Vermeer painting, and Dad’s brother makes a more modern illusion when he swings by. “It’s a bit like Tracy Emin’s kitchen in here,” making reference to the British artist’s controversial 1998 piece My Bed.
Dad is trying to keep things together, sending his kids to school, feeding them and reading to them at night (although the folkloric story of Baba Yaga might not be most suitable material for devastated pre-teens). But recent events keep plaguing him, and, though we hear it and never see it, the impact is as harrowing as if we had. There was blood, she was on the floor, she wasn’t breathing.
Around this time, the film’s adversary makes himself known. Voiced by David Thewlis, Crow is one of Dad’s artistic creations, but now he comes off the page and into the real world. Crow is entirely at odds with what’s happening in the real world: Dad’s therapist wants him to come to terms with things, but Dad isn’t sure that he wants to do that; just pack up his memories and put them in storage. By contrast, Crow believes in a more “therapeutic” method, taunting Dad in his lowest moments with insults and violence. “Come on, do your worst,” says Dad. “No,” says Crow, “I intend to do my best.”
With some occasional interference from the outside world, this brutal sparring between Dad and Crow is pretty much the core of The Thing with Feathers, a yin-and-yang thing that Southern illustrates perfectly in an intense, drunken scene choreographed to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “Feast of the Mau Mau”. Being the product of Dad’s mind, Crow really knows how to hurt him, mocking his liberal tendencies and, worse, describing his artwork as “piss-poor”, adding that it “looks like a Vettriano” (an insult that stings worse than the Emin jibe).
This all builds to an impressive study of self-implosion, and Dad’s mental state, while delicately handled, will be identifiable to anyone even remotely adjacent to such a seismic loss: His unwillingness to see visitors, his inability to take phone calls, and his refusal to accept reality (in a heart-wrenching and beautifully subtle touch, his late wife’s face is either never seen or blurred, a devastating evocation of bereavement). As a work of art, The Thing with Feathers is something special, a fantastic calling card for an auteur in waiting. As a movie, however, it won’t (and maybe can’t) be for everyone; an essay on mortality that beguiles with its beauty and stings with the truth.
Title: The Thing With Feathers
Festival: Sundance (Premieres)
Sales agent: MK2
Director: Dylan Southern
Screenwriter: Dylan Southern, from the 2016 book Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter.
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Boxall, Henry Boxall, Eric Lampaert, Vinette Robinson, Sam Spruell
Running time: 1 hr 38 mins
