The Thing With Feathers is an adaptation of a book by Max Porter called Grief Is the Thing with Feathers. Perhaps the title was changed to as to not put off the box office but there’s no two ways about it, this is a film about the Big G – and truly takes on this most difficult and yet fundamentally human issue, centred around a intensely affecting performance by Benedict Cumberbatch. He plays Dad, who in the wake of his wife’s death is trying to look after their two sons. As with the great masterpieces about grief - Don’t Look Now and Solaris – the film uses surrealist imagery to depict the fractured minds of those dealing with the loss of someone close to them.
In this, it remains faithful to Porter’s book, which sprang from the experiences of him and his brother losing a parent – his dad – at a young age.
