Director: Dylan Southern

Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Boxall, Henry Boxall

Writer-director Dylan Southen’s adaptation of Max Porter’s novel is a well-meaning misfire. Benedict Cumberbatch is ‘Dad’, a writer working on a graphic novel inspired by Ted Hughes who, after the unexpected death of his wife, is left to bring up his two young sons alone. Early sequences showing him try to prepare breakfast for his sons, along with the general state of their North London house, evidence Dad’s floundering efforts to hold things together. Then a huge crow (voiced by David Thewlis) appears and begins to goad him about his self-pitying. At first Crow seems a malevolent presence, although it becomes clear that he is here to dispense some tough love. The hulking, inky-hued figure, voiced by Thewlis in a disdainful Yorkshire accent, suggests something from a horror movie, like an avian Babadook, rather than Hughes, and the recurring appearances feel repetitive, especially after it is established what it is up to. Cumberbatch gives it his all, but his character feels as rote and as generic as his character’s name, and so inert is the drama that viewers may end up musing how an intermittently employed graphic novelist can afford a Primrose Hill house.

David Willoughby

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