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Sundance Review: ‘The Thing with Feathers’ is a Creative but Confounding Exploration of Grief
January 26, 2025Not everyone wants to spend their honeymoon relaxing on a beach surrounded by beauty and tranquility. Some seek out more active trips, while others are limited by budget and try for something that at least feels slightly different from everyday life. Opting to visit a country most famous for its hatred of cabbage due to an oversupply of it and nothing else during a previous war doesn’t feel all that romantic, and while it’s certainly an ill-fated idea, the extremely quirky Bubble & Squeak manages to find some tenderness in its over-the-top tale.
Declan (Himesh Patel) and Dolores (Sarah Goldberg) are newly married but their honeymoon isn’t off to a great start. They’ve been detained by customs in the unnamed country they’re visiting and informed that an American couple was rumored to be smuggling in cabbages, a capital offense of the highest order. It turns out that Dolores does have a number of cabbages stuffed in her pants, and Declan hatches a plan to get them out of there and into the woods, where they move from abandoned cabin to abandoned cabin, avoiding deadly traps set during past military conflicts. The vindictive Shazbor (Matt Berry) is in hot (or more accurately, quite slow) pursuit, determined to find the pair who is dishonoring his beloved country.
In order to enjoy this film, it’s important to get on board with its premise. Dolores’ pants are visibly packed with something circular, yet people freely accept that she has tumors (or don’t even ask) as she struggles to walk efficiently because she is literally weighed down by all that produce. Declan sees that she has this yet fails to confront her about why she possibly decided to do it, especially since he’s the one constantly spouting facts he read in the country’s travel guide and it feels unlikely that she would have been aware of the country’s bad history with cabbage. This is a movie where cabbage plays an outsized role, and audiences just have to accept that to be able to have fun and appreciate it.
There is a distinct tone to this film that really works, with pointed dialogue that often feels more like theater between its two protagonists. They speak to each other as if they’re not really all that intimately familiar, and both seem to have different worldviews, with Declan wearing a watch that doesn’t tell time but estimates the number of days he has left to live and Dolores much more open to adventure and positivity even when the circumstances don’t offer much hope. It’s almost guaranteed that the word cabbage has never been uttered with such frequency, and for a vegetable that likely doesn’t rank highest on most consumers’ lists of favorites, it still does play a part with its signature crunch that packs some satisfaction.
Patel and Goldberg are both Emmy nominees for understated but terrific performances in Station Eleven and Barry, respectively. Here, they’re doing something very different, both leaning into the absurdity of this film and the exaggerated nature of their characters. Patel’s character is similar to the role he plays in The Assessment, but he’s much more confident that his male perspective is superior, not necessarily in a condescending way but still leaving little room for Dolores to voice her opinions. Goldberg leaves behind any traces of darkness evident in her turns in Barry and Industry to play someone so full of innocent life, unaware of much of how the world works but indifferent to it since she just wants to have a good time.
Berry, a fan favorite from What We Do in the Shadows, does his best impression of Christoph Waltz in a humorous look at vengeful power with a horrible reputation but minimal action to back up, reminiscent in many ways of The Death of Stalin. As a customs official in the film’s opening scene with an indistinguishable accent, Steven Yeun, also a producer on the film, is quite funny, and Dave Franco adds some antics as a fellow smuggler dressed in the skin of a bear who Declan and Dolores meet in the woods.
In his debut feature, writer-director Evan Twohy has created something inarguably unique. It won’t be for everyone but does know exactly what it wants to be. It also manages to access some deeper meaning in the surface-level inane conversations between husband and wife, exploring what it means to have clashing personalities who aren’t able to agree on what’s important to both of them. Patel and Goldberg are just the right fits for their roles, and it’s clear that they understood the assignment. Audiences should have a good time with this one, even if they don’t come out of it craving cabbage.
Movie Rating: 7/10