The Thing with Feathers (2025)

October 17, 2025 (GB) • Drama • 99m

Overview

Following the death of his wife, a young father's hold on reality crumbles, and a strange presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons.

Director

Benedict Cumberbatch

Keywords

based on novel or book widower death of mother death of wife father son relationship loss of mother loss of wife coping independent film psychological drama amused

Where to watch

Rent

Buy

Top Billed Cast

Crew

Reviews

CinemaSerf

⭐ 7/10

November 26, 2025

Whilst we don’t know exactly what happened, we quickly discover that a father (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his two young sons (Henry & Richard Boxall) are recovering from the fairly traumatic death of their wife/mother. Dad is trying to put as brave a face as he can on daily life as he tries to keep the kids motivated at home and at school and whilst he continues his work as an animator for a darker, more adult, market. Things start to take quite an ominous tone at his increasingly disordered home, when he begins to hear things, to see things - and a crow he has been drawing seems central to those visions. For us watching, it is pretty clear what the purpose of this bird - in it’s more erect and cruelly verbal manifestation - actually is, but of course he is completely oblivious as the film splits into chapters for dad, the sons and even the bird itself as we explore the concept and profound impact of grief. The two Boxall lads deliver their part really quite engagingly, but it’s really the tour de force from Cumberbatch that makes this worth the watch. His character is struggling to come to terms with his loss, and though certainly not neglectful of his family his attempts to compartmentalise his feelings, to shield the boys from the excesses of his desperate emotional state and, for that matter, to immerse himself in a world of professional escapism fuelled by Scotch are really quite powerfully delivered by an actor who genuinely comes across as a man completely lost. The representations of the feathered spectre introduce quite a degree of psychological menace, even violence, and these also contribute to the general sense of exasperation that this man, and to an extent his sons, experience as they are just old enough to be cognisant of the disaster that has hit them all, but not of it’s longer term ramifications. The soundtrack also adds an effective element of melancholy and frenzy at times, and I was frankly quite surprised at my own level of investment in this family’s predicament as this moved on. Maybe not a film to watch if you are a recent survivor of the grieving process, but otherwise it takes a different slant on the topic, and is worth a look.

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Status

Released

Original Language

Budget

$6,000,000

Revenue

$774,063

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