Mark Reviews Movies: THE POWER OF THE DOG

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | November 16, 2021

Initially, the story of The Power of the Dog seems like the stuff of melodrama, with its bold characterizations and move toward broad conflict and adoration of sweeping landscapes. Writer/director Jane Campion, though, shatters those expectations, as she subtly but clearly continues to define and re-define these characters. The film focuses as much on their internal conflicts as—if not more so than—the external matters that divide these people, while transforming the wide plains, rolling hills, and deep skies of the not-so-Old American West into a place that is both on the cusp of change and unwavering in its ways.

The story comes from a 1967 novel by Thomas Savage, and the film retains that novelistic sense of becoming steeped in the lives and thoughts of its characters. Here, we meet a quartet of figures, living and making the best of what upbringing and fate have given them in 1920s Montana (New Zealand serves as an authentic stand-in). By the end, we come to understand each of them on an uncomfortably intimate but profound level.

All of these characters are, to one degree or another, larger-than-life figures, in the way the entire world of this story seems to revolve around each of them at one point or another. Campion's determination to ensure that we comprehend and, as unlikely as it may seem, sympathize with every single one of them, though, grounds each of them as fully human—frail and fragile and tragic.

Indeed, the story here is a tragedy, although one would be hard-pressed to identify the actual tragedy of this tale from the start. That's another of the film's strengths—the way it allows these characters, their pasts, their secrets, and their unspoken longings to define what the story is and what it actually means.

It all begins on a ranch, in a valley far into the mountains and hills, beyond any sign of what could be called civilization. A pair of brothers run the ranch, having taken over from their parents—now retired and living elsewhere—some years ago. They were raised here and grew up among horses and cows, amidst lengthy cattle drives into town, and within the busy days and quiet, lonely nights on the trail or in the family manor (Cinematographer Ari Wenger's use of sparse, natural light turns the house into a haunted place).

Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) is in charge of the actual functioning of the ranch, while his brother George (Jesse Plemons) handles the business side of the place. Our first sign that first impressions aren't all they're cracked up to be with these people is in the brothers' history. George, who is soft-spoken and takes care of the ranch's finances, seems more like the intelligent and worldly type. Phil, who is brash and isn't afraid to get his hands dirty with matters such as castrating hundreds of bulls, comes across as one who has lived and breathed ranching every day since before he could walk.

Upon arriving in the nearest town with a herd of cattle, though, we discover that Phil attended an Ivy League university, while George wasn't what one would call college material. Phil puts it more bluntly, like the way he always refers to his brother as "Fatso." Something has made Phil much more than hardened. He sees strength, not only as physical, but also as the capacity to impose his will over others. It has made him consistently and easily cruel.

In that town live Rose Gordon (Kirsten Dunst), a kind and mournful widow, and her teenage son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), whom some in this time and place would dub "peculiar"—and much worse. Phil and his ranch hands mock the paper flowers he crafted and laugh at his general manner—all of them, that is, except for George.

After repeated stops into town, George suddenly announces to Phil that he and Rose have married. She'll be living on the ranch, while Peter is away at boarding school. Phil tosses a few insults, but on the night of Rose's arrival, after listening to and stewing in the couple's laughter and pleasure, he takes out his actual frustration on a helpless horse.

The initial tragedy here seems to be arriving in the way Phil treats Rose, who is left alone with her brother-in-law whenever George is out on business (An embarrassing dinner party, in which George shows himself to be a complete bore, more or less puts an end to his purpose in this story, and that, as it turns out, is correct ending for this character, because Campion is so attuned to these characters on their own and within the narrative). Rose takes up drinking to numb the pain of his malice. When Peter arrives on the ranch during a school break, that second, unexpected tragedy gradually emerges.

Phil, the obvious villain for the tale when it's about George and Rose, does become the focus in this section, as does his relationship with Peter. The specifics of that connection won't be revealed here, but there's a significant thrill in how specific Campion is building that relationship, examining these characters, and raising the specter of what eventually seems, like in the manner of traditional tragedy, an inevitable outcome for this story.

Details that once seemed to explain one aspect of a character, such as Phil's admiration and near-canonization of the now-dead rancher who taught him everything, begin to explain something else entirely. The growing bond between Phil and Peter is one thing on the surface, with a couple layers of unspoken but plainly evident issues just beneath—revealed in discovered secrets and a shared vision of what's on a seemingly ordinary hill (Another joy here is that these characters, existing in a film that encourages us to find the underlying meaning within images and actions and conversations, are themselves masters of subtext). It also, though, becomes a thematic battle of sorts about the quality and character of strength.

Phil sees it in himself and few others, laughing when Peter says that his father, whose body the boy found after the old man committed suicide, saw strength in the son. The boy—who lives as himself, even as so many ridicule him, and enacts his plan, despite the potential consequences—is strong in ways that no one, especially a man as stubborn and scornful as Phil, could recognize.

As compelling as all of the central performances are (Plemons as a dull and compassionate man, Dunst as the tortured widow/bride, and Smit-McPhee as the silently calculating tenderfoot), Cumberbatch's turn is the most impactful. His Phil possesses the outward characteristics of a mythic figure personified. The real marvel of the work, though, is how the actor deconstructs that exterior to reveal the ache and regret it veils. Campion's incisive and increasingly sensitive direction ensures that we see all of this in The Power of the Dog, an exquisitely crafted and generally superb character study.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products

Buy the Soundtrack (Digital Download)

Buy the Book

Buy the Book (Kindle Edition)