By Paul Salfen
There’s a moment in every great interview when the jet-lag fades and the real conversation begins. For director Dylan Southern, that moment arrived somewhere between mentioning his overnight flight and the fact that he was about to board another plane to São Paulo to film Oasis’s final reunion show. In other words: the man knows chaos. Which made him the perfect person to adapt Max Porter’s shattering, surreal novel Grief Is the Thing with Feathers into his stunning narrative feature debut.
“I first read the book ten years ago,” Southern tells me, voice still a little raspy from too many time zones. “I fell in love with Max’s writing immediately. Every book he’s written since has only deepened that love. So for a decade I’ve been trying to get this film financed. To finally see it hit screens feels… unreal.”
The film, titled THE THING WITH FEATHERS (a nod to the Emily Dickinson line that bookends Porter’s story), stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Dad, a man quietly coming apart after the sudden death of his wife. Left with two young boys (played with heartbreaking naturalness by newcomers), Dad’s grief doesn’t arrive politely. It arrives as Crow: a foul-mouthed, shape-shifting, trickster nightmare played by a never-better David Thewlis, who torments, protects, and ultimately forces Dad to feel what he’s been avoiding.
“It’s a meditation on grief,” Southern says, “which doesn’t exactly scream ‘Friday night at the multiplex.’ But the book, and I hope the film, does it in a way that’s incredibly moving, often funny in the darkest way, and never sentimental. Crow is this fascinating creature who barges into the family’s life and upends everything. For me, the story throws a light on male grief in particular: the sometimes unhealthy, buttoned-up ways men carry it.”
Southern is quick to credit his cast. “Benedict is operating at another level here. He’s raw, funny, frighteningly vulnerable. And David as Crow is just… electric. He’s terrifying and tender in the same breath.”
Coming from the documentary world (Southern previously directed the acclaimed Meet Me in the Bathroom about the New York rock scene), this is his first scripted feature. I ask what advice he’d give aspiring filmmakers who look at a ten-year journey from optioning a book to premiere and think, “How?”
“Perseverance,” he answers without hesitation. “No one’s going to hand you the film. You have to will it into existence. Believe in it so fiercely that you push it through to the bitter end. That’s the only way.”
He laughs when I point out he’s currently living the disorientation his main character experiences. “I do feel a bit like Dad right now. Jet-lagged, slightly unhinged, hoping a giant crow doesn’t appear in the corner of the room.”
Any chance we’ll see Southern tackle another narrative feature soon? “God, yes. After this, I’m addicted. Though right now I’m off to film what might be Oasis’s last-ever gig. Once that’s in the can, I’m straight back to scripts.”
THE THING WITH FEATHERS is exactly the kind of bold, grown-up filmmaking we don’t see enough of: funny, frightening, profoundly moving, and unafraid to stare straight into the mess of being human. As Southern heads to yet another continent, one thing is clear: after ten years of chasing this story, he’s finally set it free.
And it soars.
THE THING WITH FEATHERS Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Jessie Cave, and David Thewlis Written and Directed by Dylan Southern In theaters now
