Corvidae Movie Review

Are you a fan of fables? I am. Fables are intended to teach a moral lesson, usually through animal characters that can do things animals normally can’t do, like speaking, reasoning, and making logical deductions. Sometimes they even defend those who defend them and take vengeance on their behalf.

Corvidae is the story of Jay (Maisie Williams, Arya Stark from HBO’s Game of Thrones), who really loves birds. She has stuffed birds in her room, she flies a toy bird instead of a toy airplane…you get the idea. She runs afoul of a trio of boys who have a thing for hurting animals (in this case, a crow of the Family Corvidae). She runs the boys off with a well-placed rock or two and rescues the bird. When her best attempts at helping it fail, she goes out to bury it. Only this time, the trio are waiting with the intent to do some serious bodily harm. Jay finds that while no good deed goes unpunished, sometimes those you protect come back to protect you with horrific results.

At only 11 minutes long, Corvidae packs a serious punch. Maisie Williams is a true powerhouse, and she tells her story well without any dialogue. The trio of boys are obnoxious turds on the first go-round and menacing psychos à la The Strangers on the second go-round. The danger Jay finds herself in is truly tense. The reason (revealed via flashback) for her isolation and loneliness has genuine emotional punch, as well.

The cinematography and color palette are gray, bleak, and arctic in their feel. Shot in a wet, muddy location, Corvidae feels plain icky. It becomes the perfect setting for the vengeance when you realize that you’re seeing a live-action fable and not just a story of sick boys doing sick things. Come the ending, you will see why bad deeds do get punished, and it’s a punishment you won’t soon forget.

Corvidae is a fable that works in reverse by presenting you with a realistic situation gone horribly wrong that turns fantastic on a dime at the finish. Somewhere Aesop is smiling.