‘The Thing With Feathers’ Sundance review: Benedict Cumberbatch talks to a giant crow in bizarre misfire

nypost.com:

Running time: 104 minutes. Not yet rated.PARK CITY, Utah — Another title for “The Thing With Feathers,” which premiered Saturday night at the Sundance Film Festival, could be “The Giant Talking Crow.”Because, despite Benedict Cumberbatch’s fragile and aching performance as a widowed dad of two young boys, the bird is the word.

The actor is constantly upstaged by his pesky Crow-star, who’s meant to be the anthropomorphic embodiment of dad’s grief, but is really just a massive, ridiculous distraction.

Director Dylan Southern’s mournful drama, which is spiked with horror elements and a hint of Henson, is an adaptation of Max Porter’s acclaimed novel “Grief is the Thing with Feathers.” And a mistake.

The source material explains the underlying issue. A menacing Big Bird, an unabashedly poetic concoction, works as a literary device enhanced by the reader’s imagination.