Film

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THE POWER OF THE DOG

The Power of the Dog is a film no brief plot synopsis can do justice. And it’s not because the story is so complex; not a lot happens. But the simplicity to the action belies the intensity and complexity of the character dynamics or why you won’t be able to look away. Plot descriptions are rendered all the more meaningless after stepping into a theater. Because once you begin watching, you’ll be so unnerved by this atmospheric triumph from director Jane Campion (The Piano), you can’t help but be enveloped by its imposing world.

Leave it the inimitable Campion, a foreign female, to make a film that cuts to the heart of the American myth of machismo. Based on Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel of the same name, The Power of the Dog uses the Western genre as a starting point for its crisis of masculinity and repression, and in doing so creates a psychological thriller of the highest order: an intimate gothic chamber piece set against the vastness of the American West. With tension that makes you feel like someone is standing on your chest, this is slow-burn storytelling at its finest, and the payoff is very, very real.

Set in 1925 Montana, the film focuses on the Burbank brothers, Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George (Jesse Plemons), two single men running a successful ranch operation and living together in a stately Victorian mansion where they still share the same bed, just like they did when they were kids.

Far from a display of brotherly love, it’s symptomatic of their toxic dependency, even though they can barely tolerate each other (which is a generous description). The volatile and brutal Phil is the embodiment of brute strength — caked with dirt, dominating his horse, making his own rope, and commending the attention of cowpokes as he speaks with reverence about his mentor, Bronco Henry. Far from what you’d expect from someone with an Ivy League degree in the Classics, he has reinvented himself as the roughest and toughest cowboy around.

The gentler, softer, and more businessminded Georgie Boy bears the brunt of Phil’s verbal and psychological abuse — that is, until a fateful meal at a nearby restaurant where Phil cruelly mocks the effete son of the restaurant’s widowed proprietress, Rose (Kirsten Dunst). As Rose cries in the kitchen, George is unexpectedly placed in the role of consoler, and a bond between the two develops, culminating in a surprise marriage. becomes the target of his sadistic pleasures. In a truly unforgettable scene where Rose nervously practices the piano, Phil taunts her, note by note, by devilishly playing along on his banjo. It’s a masterful piece of filmmaking that underscores how his brand of intelligence-driven ruthlessness is so much more menacing than any threat of violence.

And with her son away at college, Rose becomes a tragic, trapped, and tormented figure at a breaking point. She is the defenseless prey of an enigmatic evil until her son returns home and the film slowly and transcendently reveals its secrets, making it all too clear from where Phil’s rage stems.

As Phil, Cumberbatch is a revelation. Watching him makes you feel like an explosion could erupt at any moment right in the room you’re in. You feel his menacing down deep, digging up feelings you have long tried to suppress. But his cruelty is not something that is unambiguously villainous; it’s something far more textured. While Cumberbatch has the showiest role, each of the four leads are equally magnificent in their own ways. All should be nominated for Oscars, including breakout performer Kodi Smit-McPhee, who plays Rose’s effete son, Peter, and whose physicality speaks volumes.

When these performances are combined with Campion’s command of visual language, each shot conveys immensity. You can understand a character on a near-spiritual level with just a glance, with one shot saying more with than some entire films manage.

Set against a beautiful yet uninviting backdrop, the grandeur of the Burbank house placed amidst a harsh landscape seems to emerge straight out of a Wyeth painting, or calling to mind the cinematic poetry of Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven.

Under cinematographer Ari Wegner, Campion’s New Zealand makes a convincing stand-in for the American West, while also somehow lending an air of freshness to the western’s landscape. Shadows and clouds mix to set a gorgeous scene of doom and dread, and the vast expanses begin to claustrophobically close in. Johnny Greenwood’s score further unsettles with harsh strings that heighten the suspense.

It all leads to a whopper of an ending that is both wildly satisfying and exquisitely disquieting, and that pains me not to be able to discuss with everyone. Majestic, incisive, and unnerving, Power of the Dog’s gripping and visceral power cannot be denied.