How the Who inspired a key scene in Benedict Cumberbatch's new movie, “The Thing With Feathers”

The Thing With Feathers may be based on a book, but it also takes inspiration from an unlikely source — the album cover of the Who's 1979 album, The Kids Are Alright.

The film premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on Saturday night, and director Dylan Southern revealed the album's role in influencing a striking tableau in the film during a post-screening Q&A.

The film follows Dad (Benedict Cumberbatch), a young widower who is struggling to cope with raising his two sons in the wake of his wife's sudden death. His grief manifests as a gigantic crow that stalks through his home, serving as both a frightening specter and protector. As Crow takes on more of the latter role, a scene depicts Crow seated in the center of a sofa with Cumberbatch on one side of him and the two boys on the other, all wrapped within the safety of Crow's wings.

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The scene is a direct reference to a moment in Max Porter's novella, which is the source material for the film. But it's also Southern's tribute to an iconic British rock band.

"There's a really cool picture of the Who on the cover of The Kids Are Alright where they're wrapped in the Union Jack," Southern said. "And that was my reference for that."

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"That's teamwork, you know," Porter quipped.

Cumberbatch shared his reasons for signing onto the film, both as the star on whom most of the emotional heavy lifting falls and as producer. "The book had a profound effect on me when I read it," the Doctor Strange actor explained. "And Dylan's pitch was really intriguing and the friendship that grew out of our conversations. I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that we'd get a film [that would turn out] like this. I knew from his deep cineastic nerdy knowledge, his love of every kind of craft that you see and hear in the film, his ideas of how to create depth and how to challenge tone and genre."

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The actor also noted how intimidating the role was to tackle. "It's different in reality from what was on the page, but on the page, [it's] very challenging," he said. "You have the children, a man in a big rubber suit with an animatronic head, and a 21st-century crew — with all that, trying to externalize [intimacy] that was interesting."

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One of the bigger challenges Cumberbatch faced was figuring out the dynamic between his more detached onscreen father and his desire to connect with the young actors playing his sons. "I just captured little moments — to remember to play, to be open with the kids, and also how to distance myself," he explained. "I found it difficult. When the camera was on I was trying to be dad, who isn't a very good dad, and then when the camera was off, trying to be a much better dad to get these children to feel comfortable, to feel like friends who could play with me. That was a joyous thing to do. It's a feast for an actor, so [there was] a lot to lure me to the project."

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