● Film
Ensembles
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH AND JESSE PLEMONS
“The Power of the Dog”
Gordon, played with brittle intensity by SAG Award winner Kirsten Dunst. From the moment Rose and Phil meet, it’s clear that her meek nature awakens something in him. His initial unkindness soon blooms into a savagery designed to break her, with Cumberbatch taking every opportunity to demonstrate Phil’s brutality. He shows his enthusiasm for the task with his spine-chilling whistling, which he deploys both as a warning and a rallying cry throughout the film. Tapping into the animalistic—at times Phil’s a wily feline looking for prey, at others a slimy reptile assessing everyone around him—Cumberbatch builds a complex character who’s more than his irrational macho outbursts would suggest. For her part, Dunst is as raw and vulnerable as she’s ever been. Lit by George’s warmth (Plemons and Dunst’s real-life chemistry is an added bonus), Rose opens up, only to find herself left to fend off Phil’s humiliations alone. Soon, she finds comfort in the bottles of bourbon she hides around their cavernous house. Dunst renders her slow descent into
alcoholism beautifully and plays Rose like her namesake flower: a thing of fragile beauty that risks wilting without proper care. The majority of “The Power of the Dog” operates as a series of duets, and its final third finds its most thrilling match once Rose’s son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) comes to live with his mother. At first prey, then a welcome mentee, then a possible threat to Phil, Smit-McPhee unnerves and captivates whenever he’s onscreen. Tackling his most mature role to date, the former child actor is a revelation, keeping the young boy’s eerie strangeness a knotted mystery up until the credits roll. While the central quartet dominates much of the story, there’s an impressive roster of veterans who make the most of their contributions. As Burbank parents “Old Gent” and “Old Lady,” Peter Carroll and Frances Conroy are commanding. Geneviève Lemon, playing the siblings’ no-nonsense housekeeper; Keith Carradine as the stuffy Governor; and Adam Beach as Edward Nappo, a local Native American man, round out the cast of Campion’s intimate epic. —MANUEL BETANCOURT
MAIN CAST: Adam Beach, Keith Carradine, Peter Carroll, Frances Conroy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Geneviève Lemon, Thomasin McKenzie, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee CASTING BY: Nikki Barrett, Tina Cleary, Carmen Cuba, and Nina Gold DIRECTED BY: Jane Campion WRITTEN BY: Jane Campion (based on Thomas Savage’s novel) DISTRIBUTED BY: Netflix
BACKSTAGE 12.20.21
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KIRSTY GRIFFIN/NETFLIX
“THE POWER OF THE DOG” ASKS ITS ACTORS to lean into restraint; Jane Campion’s adaptation of Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel is, after all, a tale of things unsaid. The Western, which picked up the Silver Lion for best direction at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons as ranching brothers in 1920s Montana trying to build their lives on what feels like the edge of the world. The two couldn’t be more different. Phil Burbank, played by SAG and Academy Award nominee Cumberbatch, is a pure force of nature. He’s a man of the earth who’s most at home atop a horse with the wind on his face. He delights in solitary baths at the local creek almost as much as he does in unleashing his cruelty on those he deems weak and worthy of his rage. George (SAG Award winner Plemons), on the other hand, is a gentleman whose tweed suits and soft-spoken demeanor match his quiet charm. As business partners and housemates, the siblings have learned how to navigate each other’s lives—that is, until George introduces his new bride, Rose
