The Thing With Feathers Review: Benedict Cumberbatch Goes All-In For This Treatise On Grief [SUNDANCE 2025]

Just as there are a hundred different ways to grieve, there are a hundred different metaphors for grief. A rain cloud. A shadow. A pit opening up into the earth. In "The Thing With Feathers," based on the 2015 novel "Grief is the Thing With Feathers" by Max Porter, grief is manifested by a giant, anthropomorphized crow, who alternately haunts and helps a family recover from the sudden loss of its wife and mother. The metaphor is apt, giving us keen insight into the grieving process, if at times a little belabored. With an all-in performance from Benedict Cumberbatch and a unique visual style, "The Thing With Feathers" is an inescapably compelling drama — even if its concept is perhaps a bit more interesting than its execution.

Cumberbatch plays a character known only as Dad, a nod to the fact that fatherhood is the central point of his identity within the film. He's no longer a husband after the shocking death of his apparently healthy wife, and in addition to grappling with her sudden absence in his life, he now has to devote all of his attention to raising their two young sons (played by real-life brothers Richard and Henry Boxall). This task, something that came as second nature to him when his wife was alive, has become a mountain to climb. He is overwhelmed by grief, the feelings of inadequacy when he can't seem to manage the household as smoothly as Mom did, and guilt that he's letting his boys down. And to make matters worse, he is visited by a massive crow (voiced by David Thewlis, in a role that sounds unintentionally but disconcertingly like the Shame Wizard from "Big Mouth") who is determined to make Dad really feel his grief.

The presentation of grief in this way is a moving reflection of its reality. Crow comes suddenly, without warning, at the moments where Dad is most vulnerable. When he has a quiet space to himself, when he's not overwhelmed by the care of his sons, grief creeps in. There are times when it's cruel, saying all the things that Dad fears most, but usually it feels as though it's at least trying to help and is a necessary part of the process. It's here where the film draws its most defining line between grief and despair — where Crow is unpleasant but somehow needed, despair as represented by the Demon is a darkness that threatens to tear Dad apart from the inside out (literally and figuratively).

The concepts behind "The Thing With Feathers" work incredibly well, but the execution is occasionally flawed. It often seems insistent on blending horror and drama, to the detriment of the overall film. Whenever the quieter moments between Dad and his two sons (some of the most naturalistic child acting we've seen in quite some time, by the way) pull us in, the loud and bombastic transitions to horror keep us at an arm's length, reminding us that we're watching a director make stylistic choices. The creature design of Crow is fantastic, but some of the imagery involving the spectre of grief does have a tendency to become increasingly repetitive. 

And although it makes some amount of narrative sense to divide the film into four parts — Dad, Boys, Crow, and The Demon — it may have been more effective in bringing in horror elements if these parts had been more interconnected. It could develop a creeping sense of dread as the boys struggle with the sudden and disturbing changes in their father's character, for example, or make the Demon (despair) a growing presence over the course of the film. As it stands, the arrival of the Demon is the scariest part of "The Thing With Feathers," a foreboding figure that lies to you, misrepresenting reality itself, to break down your defenses.

Although "The Thing With Feathers" is a flawed film, it is also an undeniably compelling one. In fact, it's one that audiences likely won't be able to stop thinking about long after they've finished watching it. The metaphor of grief is a simple one, but it manifests itself in so many different, nuanced ways that are ripe for analysis. And of course, a film with Benedict Cumberbatch throwing his considerable thespian weight behind the lead role is always going to be worth watching. 

But as much as we were impressed by his performance, there are a handful of unexpected surprises strewn throughout the film. The Boxall brothers as the two young sons are fascinating to watch as they navigate their own grief while shrewdly observing their father deal with his. And the physical design of Crow is remarkable, defining the visual palette of "The Thing With Feathers." If it could only figure out what genre film it is, rather than trying to be a handful of different things at once and splitting the difference, it would be pretty close to great.

"The Thing With Feathers" premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on January 25. As of the time of writing, it does not yet have distribution.