Dylan Southern adapts the Max Porter novella, ‘Grief Is the Thing With Feathers,’ about a widowed father and the menacing giant crow that attaches itself to his sorrow.

Played by Benedict Cumberbatch, he is an artist of sorts; some people call his work “comic books”, others call them “graphic novels”, a term he thinks is “wanky”. His output is alluded to in the film’s atmospheric credit sequence,