{"id":273684,"date":"2025-11-20T14:17:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T14:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/273684\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T14:17:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T14:17:15","slug":"the-thing-with-feathers-review-benedict-cumberbatch-overdoes-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/273684\/","title":{"rendered":"The Thing with Feathers review \u2014 Benedict Cumberbatch overdoes it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of the three big \u201cgrief movies\u201d galloping into the awards race, this one is the hobbled donkey. The other two are Hamnet<\/a> and H Is for Hawk, and their understanding and subtle expression of human suffering makes this showy Benedict Cumberbatch effort seem gobsmackingly trite. <\/p>\n

Cumberbatch, mostly overdoing it throughout, plays a newly widowed London dad called, sigh, Dad (yes, it\u2019s based on a book, but come on, is it that difficult to whip up a name?), who is struggling to raise his two boys, called, double-sigh, Boy 1 (Richard Boxall) and Boy 2 (Henry Boxall). Dad is one of those irksome movie men who can\u2019t make toast, can\u2019t pack school bags, can\u2019t wash dishes or use a vacuum cleaner, and don\u2019t know how zips work. Because these were the jobs of mum, called Mum (Claire Cartwright). And now Mum is dead. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews<\/a><\/p>\n

Dad is sad, and so are Boy 1 and Boy 2. They really miss Mum but don\u2019t know how to purge their pain. Hmmm. If only there was a large supernatural creature, like the tree that Liam Neeson voiced in A Monster Calls, only crap, that could become a focus for Dad, Boy 1 and Boy 2 and allow them to finally express their grief in the kind of verklempt climax that\u2019s unearned, mechanistic and phonier than a Hollywood air-kiss. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews<\/a><\/p>\n

The creature, a giant crow called, ugh, Crow, is voiced by David Thewlis and has no character function whatsoever other than to feature in tedious jump scares (he\u2019s behind you!) and to litter the soundtrack with gravel-throated nonsense such as: \u201cYes, I\u2019ve got him where he needs to be!\u201d The Neeson character in A Monster Calls was a vital narrative driver who unearthed the darker sides of familial loss. This Crow is superfluous window dressing, like a dyspeptic Big Bird from Sesame Street, but boring. <\/p>\n

Ultimately, nobody expected, say, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey to be any good, and it wasn\u2019t. But this is a Max Porter<\/a> adaptation, starring a two-time Oscar nominee and directed by the respected documentary film-maker Dylan Southern. When talented people make bad movies it hurts. And when they make hollow dramas crammed with ersatz emotions it\u2019s almost unforgivable.
\u2605\u2606\u2606\u2606\u2606
15, 104min
In cinemas from Nov 21<\/p>\n

Two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman<\/p>\n

Times+ members can enjoy two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman each Wednesday. Visit thetimes.com\/timesplus<\/a> to find out more<\/p>\n

Which films have you enjoyed at the cinema recently? Let us know in the comments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of the three big \u201cgrief movies\u201d galloping into the awards race, this one is the hobbled donkey. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-273684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}