the thing with feathers…

I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see Dylan Southern’s film, based on Max Porter’s book ’Grief Is The Thing With Feathers’ (which I’d read 9 years ago). The film is a lyrical exploration of love, loss and the strange ways we heal.
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 (Benedict Cumberbatch is rather wonderful as the father). The two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother’s sudden death. Their father, a ‘scruffy romantic’, imagines a depressing future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness. In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow – antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter (and a little more sinister than I remember from the book?). This bird is somehow drawn to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him.
A man-like crow, voiced by David Thewlis, is seemingly brought to life from the father’s work as an illustrator and is about to become a very real part of all of their lives, ultimately guiding them towards the new shape their family must take. The book was part-poetry, part-drama and part-essay on grief and I think the film very successfully captured the same emotions and gut-wrenching challenges.
It's a tough watch at times, but hauntingly powerful and very beautiful too. Excellent. 
Note: Being a lover of Sandy Denny/Fairport Convention, the closing sequence of the father scattering his wife’s ashes on a lonely beach to the strains of ‘Who Knows Where the Times Goes?’ seemed poignantly appropriate: “Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving. But how can they know, it's time for them to go? Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming, I have no thought of time…” .