News

And in the crowded field of British indie dramas, it takes a bold gambit to stand out.

As it turns out, that gambit is a giant, malevolent crow tormenting Benedict Cumberbatch. TTWF offers a delightfully perverse take on grief, landing squarely in the nascent genre of ‘bereavement horror,’ and it is as brilliant as it is bizarre.

Adapting Max Porter’s celebrated novella, the film wisely streamlines the book’s multi-perspective narrative into a more cinematically focused descent into one man’s sorrow. Cumberbatch is magnificent as the unnamed ‘Dad,’ unravelling after his wife’s death while trying to raise his two young sons. But the film’s genius lies in its audacious decision to give his grief a physical, feathered form. Enter Crow, a towering houseguest from hell, brought to life with unnerving physicality and voiced with delicious, growling malice by David Thewlis.

This isn’t just a metaphor; it’s a home invasion.

The film walks a masterful tightrope between visceral terror and savage humour. One moment, the crow is delivering a shockingly cruel promise to the grieving children; the next, it’s deriding their father as a ‘Guardian-reading, beard-stroking’ cliché in the supermarket aisle. This savage wit prevents the film from sinking into predictable melodrama, instead creating a raw, uncomfortable, and utterly captivating portrait of a man at war with his own sorrow.

The Thing with Feathers is a bold, unforgettable film that proves grief isn’t just a thing with feathers – it’s a thing with teeth, claws, and a wicked sense of humour.

It’s a magnificent, unsettling triumph that deserves to be seen.