Benedict Cumberbatch on portraying grief

Featuring Crows Rate in Dylan’s Southern Fiction debut, the haunting story of a middle-aged man concerns the sudden and unexpected death of his wife, the mother of his two sons. In terms of genre, it’s hard to place, sitting somewhere between social drama and heightened horror; If Ken Loach dreams Babadookit might look something like this. South-Known for such colorful and experimental music docs Shut up and play hits (2012) and Meet me in the bathroom (2022) – Breaking down the visceral immediacy of those films into raw, deeply emotional subject matter. Despite all the art behind it, however, The thing with the feathers It will likely prove divisive. For survivors of trauma, this will likely be jarring, but for others more fortunate, its idealized depiction of loss may be a touch too uncomfortable.

This is one of those movies where the characters don’t have names, so the dad is just dad. He is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, an artist of sorts. Some people call his work “comic books,” others call them “graphic novels,” a term he thinks of as “Wanky.” His output is alluded to in the film’s atmospheric credit sequence, in which a rough-hewn pencil attacks a white sheet of paper, the claustrophobia of which is intensified by the director’s intimate use of Oscar credit. Random, quiet words are accompanied by images of horrific black birds (“Sad Daddy,” “She Gone”), so it’s no great surprise when the screen switches to black and sound design, economically depicting an unseen funeral.

“Even if he doesn’t say it, the cinematography and production design are on top of things; this is a house that’s missing something. A happy family home shouldn’t be lit like a Vermeer painting, and Dad’s brother creates an illusion,” Dad says to his young father, who underscores the fact that they both did well today. More modern when it swings. “It’s a bit like Tracey Emin’s kitchen in here,” he notes of the controversial British artist’s 1998 piece clinical.

Dad tries to keep things together, sending his kids to school, feeding them and reading to them at night (although the folklore story of Baba Yaga may not be the most suitable material for pre-addicted teens). But modern events continue to invent it, and though we hear it and never see it, the effect is as terrible as if we had it. There was blood, she was on the floor, she wasn’t breathing.

At this time, the film’s antagonist makes himself known. Crow, voiced by David Thewlis, is one of Dad’s artistic creations, but now he’s stepping off the page and into the real world. The Crow is completely at odds with what’s going on in the real world: Dad wants Dad to come to terms with things, but Dad isn’t sure he wants to do that; Just pack up his memories and put them in storage. By contrast, Crowe believes in a more “therapeutic” method, taunting Abi in his lowest moments with insults and violence. Dad says: “Come on, do your worst.” “No,” Crow says, “I intend to.” better“

With some occasional interference from the outside world, this brutal sparring between Abi and Qrow is pretty much the gist The thing with the featherssomething South makes abundantly clear in an intense scene of a drunken person determined to scream “Maw Maw Day.” Being a product of Abe’s mind, Crowe really knows how to hurt him, making fun of his liberal leanings, and worse, describing his artwork as a “freakish emoji.”

It all builds to a riveting study of the excesses of the self, and my father’s mental state, though delicately handled, would be known to anyone even remotely adjacent to such a seismic loss: his unwillingness to see visitors, his inability to make phone calls, and phone calls, a refusal to accept reality (in a heartfelt 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 the feathers It is something special, a great calling card for Elliot in Waiting. As a film, it won’t (and probably can’t) be for everyone; An essay on deaths that amazes with its beauty and its nuances of truth.

address: The thing with the feathers
festival: Sundance (premiere)
Sales agent: MK2
exit: Southern Dylan
screenwriter: Southern Dylan, from the 2016 book Sadness is the thing with feathers Written by Max Porter.
ejaculate: Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Boxall, Henry Buckall, Eric Lambert, Venette Robinson, Sam Spruill
Operating time: 1 hour 38 minutes