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Benedict Cumberbatch’s star status comes from angular, hyper-clever roles like Sherlock and Doctor Strange. His finest acting, however, is always as a tormented, unlikeable outsider – Patrick Melrose, Alan Turing and now the substance-abusing father of a missing child in Eric, an emotional thriller from Abi Morgan. Eric begins with nine-year-old Edgar vanishing in 1980s Manhattan near a disco with a history of child prostitution. Cumberbatch is Vincent, a puppeteer on Sesame Street-style kids’ show Good Morning Sunshine. Vincent has drug and mental health problems and gradually sinks into addiction and hallucinations, imagining a giant foul-mouth puppet – the eponymous Eric. It’s a deftly constructed ensemble piece, with sterling turns from Gaby Hoffman, as Vincent’s increasingly estranged wife, and McKinley Belcher III as Detective Ledroit, a gay cop in a homophobic force investigating Edgar’s disappearance. But Cumberbatch steals the show.