Grief is the word – and beyond – at the British flick fest
Benedict Cumberbatch explores grief in one of the many great films we will get to see nationwide in November at the Russell Hobbs British Film Festival.
Benedict Cumberbatch is an actor of many talents. Best known for his portrayal as the Doctor Strange Marvel character and for his Emmy-winning role in the TV series Sherlock, he was Oscar-nominated for his portrayal of Alan Turing in The Imitation Game and as a nasty sexually repressed rancher in Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog.
He also brought his deep voice to the dastardly dragon Smaug in The Hobbit movies.
In late 2013 he became part of a new production company, SunnyMarch, helping to produce adventure movies including The Mauritanian, The Courier and recent release The Roses, in which he stars alongside Olivia Colman.
The company’s latest film is The Thing With Feathers, based on Max Porter’s 2015 award-winning novella, Grief is the Things With Feathers. The film marks the directing debut of Dylan Southern and screens across Australia from November 5, presented by Palace Cinemas.
In it Cumberbatch plays a father grieving the loss of his wife as he raises two young sons (played by lookalike brothers Richard and Henry Boxall). Simply called Dad, he’s a London creator of graphic novels and uses his art to help relieve his pain. After he creates an elaborate black ink picture of a crow for his new graphic novel, he is confronted by the fantastical creature (voiced by David Thewlis) and it ultimately helps him heal as he struggles to verbalise his grief.
At the Berlin Film Festival, Cumberbatch said: “I chiefly like things that allow interior thought in cinema and cinematic language to be seen and imagined or witnessed in a non-verbal way. This bleed between the conscious and the subconscious is quite rare terrain for examining grief.”
The 49-year-old, who has three young sons with his theatre and opera director wife Sophie Hunter, says the film is about letting go of grief and understanding that something that was once there is not there anymore.
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“It’s too trite to say that that’s something of what we do as actors, but I suppose it is,” he says. “You definitely don’t want to take this work home in a literal sense but, in a more profound sense, you’re learning as an artist or as a human being and asking questions of what it is to be both.”
‘The things that scare me have a real lure. The things I feel uncomfortable about being able to do really draw me in’
Cumberbatch says the film is very much about male grief.
“Uncertainty and emotional vulnerability are not at the top of the agenda of the alpha male machismo that’s being pushed as the strong image of what masculinity is or should be. So I’m very happy to be part of storytelling that goes in the opposite direction of that.”
Ultimately, Dad finds hope rather than despair. Cumberbatch readily admits that extremes stand out in his work.
“The things that scare me have a real lure. The things I feel uncomfortable about being able to do really draw me in, as do the things I feel I haven’t done before. I think part of our job as storytellers is not to shy away from the true spectrum of what it is to be human, from our very worst to our very best and everything in between.”
He explains how the idea behind setting up production company SunnyMarch was to support challenging and new work.
“That’s very exciting to be part of,” he says. “I’m thrilled to be part of that in front of the camera, but equally so behind, in many cases. It’s nice to keep culture fresh, so the focus is not just on me or on anyone else we know.”
The stars come thick and fast in other British festival films. Two actors of the moment, Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor, co-star in Oliver Hermanus’s music-infused early 20th century gay love story, The History of Sound, about a singer and an academic who bond over early folk songs, which they record on wax cylinders as they travel around rural Maine.
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The film premiered in Cannes and was compared to Brokeback Mountain.
Mescal’s other festival film, Hamnet, has received stronger reviews, even though it’s Jessie Buckley as his wife Agnes who is the focus in the fictionalised story of a woman forced to accept the death of their son, Hamnet. (Note that the character was named Agnes and not Anne Hathaway, the name of Shakespeare’s actual wife.)
While it is two Irish actors playing Brits, both deliver stellar performances, especially Buckley who showed a similarly fierce spirit in 2018’s Wild Rose. She is already being signalled for Oscar attention, as is Chloe Zhao’s film, which won the prestigious audience award at The Toronto Festival.
Zhao, best known for the Oscar-winning Nomadland, adapted the film from Maggie O’Farrell’s prize-winning 2020 novel, together with the author.
Opening The Russell Hobbs British Film Festival is Nicholas Hytner’s drama, The Choral, starring Ralph Fiennes as the leader of a Yorkshire choir who must recruit teenagers after its male members have enlisted in World War One. Still, even the teenagers must face conscription into the army. The crowd-pleasing film has funny moments and is worth seeing, for Fiennes’ performance alone.
Likewise, the festival centrepiece, Anemone, is a must-see because of the return to acting of Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays a recluse living in a cabin in the Irish woods when his brother (Sean Bean) comes to visit. The three-time Oscar winner delivers a much-cited monologue and is again likely to receive awards attention. He wrote the film together with his son Ronan, who makes his directing debut.
Emma Thompson, sporting an American accent, is also receiving raves for her performance in the icy Fargo-like suspense thriller, Dead of Winter, while the ever-lovable Bill Nighy stars as a reclusive famous novelist who believes he is about to die in & Sons.
A selection of real-life stories profiling iconic Brits also feature in this year’s line-up. John Cleese Packs It In follows the comedy legend on the road as he battles various ailments, chaotic travel and his own stubborn refusal to stop.
And Twiggy recounts the meteoric rise of the 1960s style icon and showcases her fashion, fame and fearless individuality, while Borrowed Time – Lennon’s Last Decade charts John Lennon’s life, post-Beatles.
The Russell Hobbs British Film Festival, November 5 to December 7, screens at Palace Barracks and Palace James Street, Brisbane; and at Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas and Palace Nova Prospect Cinemas, Adelaide. For other locations, go to britishfilmfestival.com.au