Directed by:
Jane CampionScreenplay:
Jane CampionCinematography:
Ari WegnerComposer:
Jonny GreenwoodCast:
Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Thomasin McKenzie, Frances Conroy, Keith Carradine, Adam Beach, Geneviève Lemon (more)VOD (1)
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Jane Campion returns to the kind of mythic frontier landscape - pulsating with both freedom and menace - that she previously traversed in The Piano in order to plumb the masculine psyche in The Power of the Dog. Set against the desolate plains of 1920s Montana and adapted by the filmmaker from Thomas Savage’s novel. After a sensitive widow (Kirsten Dunst) and her enigmatic, fiercely loving son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) move in with her gentle new husband (Jesse Plemons), a tense battle of wills plays out between them and his brutish brother (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose frightening volatility conceals a secret torment, and whose capacity for tenderness, once reawakened, may offer him redemption or destruction. Campion, who won an Academy Award for her direction here, charts the repressed desire and psychic violence coursing among these characters with the mesmerizing control of a master at the height of her powers. (Criterion)
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Reviews (10)
The Power of the Dog feels like one of those artsy dramas that teases a deeper homosexual theme, only to pivot back to a more traditional American drama set in the 1920s. In the end, it’s mostly about the pretty visuals, which, in the context of the story, don’t add up to much. Jane Campion’s style is all over this film, and while I can appreciate her work, it just didn’t click for me here.
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The Power of the Dog plays out a very interesting and engaging psychological game with the central characters in the first half. You are waiting and wishing for their frustrations to quietly simmer away and eventually explode violently. However, that is not going to happen; the second half pretty much pushes it all into a corner in such a predictable and unexciting way that you almost feel sorry for the promising beginning. In any case, Benedict Cumberbatch has convinced me that he is a great actor - if there is one reason to watch this movie, it is his performance. Plus, the movie has a very impressive score.
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Burbank, played by Benedict Cumberbatch in a devilishly nasty yet hypnotically appealing performance, is a character that hasn't appeared in a film since perhaps 2007, when There Will Be Blood and the oil-soaked Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, burst into cinemas. The Power of the Dog is a fascinatingly odd film, where you suspect every minute that something terrible is going to happen, and it usually does. Those who want a classic western, or even a modern western, go elsewhere. Those who want a dense, ruthless, ugly and dusty showcase of madness should wait for the right mood and put on Power of the Dog.
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Humble, beautifully filmed, full of dramatic scenery and subliminal tension, which is, however, quite forcefully injected by Johnny Greenwood's sometimes shallow underscore. Campion's script is unfocused and the plot, divided into fragments, doesn't create coherent dramatic tension, and in the end it kind of depends on the power of chance, and I therefore struggled with the point rather than lived it. The strongest motif is not the son's love for his mother or the misalignment of the two reclusive characters, but rather the relationship between the two brothers, which quietly fades from the plot after about half an hour, much like Jesse Plemons outplaying the rest of the cast. The result is a diet broth of There Will Be Blood and In Fabric. An elegant piece that barks but doesn't bite.
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Kodi Smit-Mcphee is going to have a hard time from the LGBT community. The Power of the Dog is a really weird family drama set in Montana in 1925, where it seems a key scene is missing, but wait! That’s on purpose. The characters suddenly change their demeanor thanks to something that happens off-camera. Campion simply hints at it and leaves the viewer to do the thinking. So the picture plays through without any sort of catharsis. It all stands on the shoulders of an excellent Cumberbatch who makes the very most of playing the rancher, really enjoying it.
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