Dylan Southern adapts the Max Porter novella, ‘Grief Is the Thing With Feathers,’ about a widowed father and the menacing giant crow that attaches itself to his sorrow.

Played by Benedict Cumberbatch, he is an artist of sorts; some people call his work “comic books”, others call them “graphic novels”, a term he thinks is “wanky”. His output is alluded to in the film’s atmospheric credit sequence,

Crow never becomes a gripping character; he's too sternly abstract, too hectoring, too much of a visual effect in search of a personality.

Benedict Cumberbatch is committed, but Dylan Southern's 'The Thing With Feathers' is simply burdened by wallowing in its characters' despair