The Power of the Dog

This movie is slow. I had no idea where it was going at first. We seemingly don't have a true protagonist. Benedict Cumberbatch gives a stellar performance because he truly made me loath his character. And yet I can't stop thinking about it. All because of that ending and delicious twist that made the whole experience so very worth it.

Great film! Fantastic acting! Slow burner for sure. If you think you can predict what's about to happen next, ha! Your gladly mistaken. Jane Campion's masterpiece will keep you guessing. Do yourself a favor and watch this film!

[Netflix] The film masterfully handles subtext, it has an emotional background that is expressed without the need for dialogue. The filming in New Zealand gives an almost dreamlike aspect to the landscapes of this anti-western, a kind of reverse of the genre. There is a constant tension that is shown in the distorted strings and sepulchral winds of Jonny Greenwood's music.

What a story. I liked it. Benedict Cumberbatch does as always an amazing job, in this case giving life to a hateful man. Some people say it is slow but I think it could have had more things because the abrupt changes from one moment to the other are in some points confusing. The music is delightful because it engages you with the images shown. The production design is great and it enables you to focus on the story and not so much in the inaccuracies.

What a clever critic against the machismo and the toxic masculinity. The movie explore practically all the aspects of the topic, how this affect the life of everybody... besides that, the movie has a very interesting drama that never let the movie be boring, it is always playing with your expectations.
The cinematography is beautiful, the score is amazing, Benedict Cumberbatch and Kodi-Smith Mcphee are great here wonderful here and the only thing that bothered me a little was the expository ending, they don't need to explain what happened in that way.

What does the Phrase "the power of the dog" mean? Read this interpretation somewhere, and found it to be apt: "The Power of the Dog, the power of the evil man and the evil choice, of corruption over honesty and lawlessness over law."
The original quote that Peter read from the book in the movie : "Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog."

“I want to say how nice it is not to be alone.”

‘The Power of the Dog’ is a triumph return for director Jane Campion after a 12-year absence from cinema. The movies pace is steady and patient, so some people will take issue with that and find the movie too slow and uneventful, but for me, I was never bored by it. Instead, I was captivated by its eeriness and complexity. It’s a movie that never explains itself and nothing is articulated, but you can pinpoint the long-troubled history just from reading the characters faces and actions.

This is one of Benedict Cumberbatch’s best performance of his career and it’s my favourite role from him. He plays Phil Burbank, a repulsive and cruel human being, who deep down has this boiling rage inside of him that he unleashes by abusing animals such as horses. However, I also found the character fascinating, because you never really know why he does the things he does. The expression throughout the movie was irritation, as if the western wind said something that got under his skin. His got the personality of a misbehaved child, sometimes mimicking and mocking those around him. Sulky and strange, with a thousand-yard stare.

But man, Jesse ‘mother fucking’ Plemons, who plays George Burbank, the brother of Phil Burbank. I mean, holy shit what a natural and gifted performer. His relationship with his brother is complicated to say the least, and George is powerless to Phil’s constant insults towards his weight, appearance, and his new love for a female hotel keeper. Even then, the two brothers would still share a bed together. As I said before, it's complicated.

Kirsten Dunst plays Rose, a local hotel keeper who romantically falls for Jesse Plemons and gets thrown into the ranch life, something she and her son are not suited for, which sets the story into motion. Her son is played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, an awkward kid who stands out for the wrong reasons. Dunst and McPhee, both child stars who grew up into maturity on film and both deliver effective performances. Just from the facial expressions alone they manage to convey some much hurt and curiosity that the characters experience when in the presence of Phil Burbank. It’s one of the finest roles.

The use of music here isn’t something you will remember after the movie ends, but I feel that when re-watching it, the score, along with the scenes playing out, makes the experience more hypnotizing and oddly mystical.

The movie was filmed in New Zealand, and it never looked more beautiful until Jane Campion is behind the camera. Even with the muted colours and harsh quality to it, it still felt dreamy.

Although, if you’re a massive lover of animals, then beware because there’s a couple of scenes in this movie of animal abuse that may upset you. It’s not on screen for long, like a few seconds, but man those few seconds are rough. Or just cover your eyes.

Overall rating: *whistles menacingly*

[8.3/10] I spent most of *The Power of the Dog* thinking the movie was nigh-plotless and not really minding. It’s not as though there was no story to speak of. People married. They adjusted to the new arrangement, as did their children and siblings. Friction and addiction ensued.

But it didn’t seem like a film driven by story. Instead, it was centered on the relationships between the characters: Phil, the gruff but jealous rancher; George, his simple but sweet brother; Rose, the caring but troubled woman George marries, and Peter, her effete yet scrupulous son. More than the ongoing lurch of the plot, the movie is built on the tangled, conflicting relationships of these four individuals.

That would have been enough on its own. Phil loves his brother but is emotionally estranged from him. He resents Rose for “stealing” George from him and psychologically attacks and undermines her at every opportunity. He's initially cruel to the effeminate Peter, compensating for his own insecurities over his sexuality, but eventually takes a shine to the boy after projecting the ghost of his lost love upon him. Phil is not the protagonist of the piece, but he is the main character, and there’s more than enough complexity and nuance in his psychology and his dynamics with the other characters to sustain the film.

George is a reserved character, but a unique one. Socially awkward, naive to the point of obliviousness, and a step slow to boot, there’s a gentle soul beneath his fumbling demeanor. His care for Rose and Peter speaks to a compassion Phil lacks. His tearful confession to his wife of how wonderful it feels not to be alone is sweet in his feelings for her and an indictment on his relationship with the brother he lacks the strength to stand up to.

Rose is, like so many others of her gender and station, the plaything of other forces who have the funds and position to give them an agency she almost entirely lacks. She is, arguably, the film’s most sympathetic character, who feels uncomfortable when plucked from her humble circumstances, and turns to substances amid both the weight of her feeling out of place and her brother-in-law’s tireless efforts to mentally destroy her.

Peter is the protagonist, the characters whose words we first hear in the film, and the one whose actions ultimately have the biggest impact on the story. But he is an unassuming, diffident, retiring figure. Lithe and unmanly, he is demeaned by the rough-and-tumble ranchers he finds himself surrounded with. He loves his mother dearly, in ways that verge on the concerning in a film with plenty of questionable family subtext. And in Phil, he finds both mentor and dupe, someone who attempts to show him how to be a man in this world despite the sense of difference, while learning, in grave terms, how well Peter’s able to protect himself and those he cares about in the final tally.

All of that would be enough on its own. There’s a different version of *The Power of the Dog* -- one that’s a pure kitchen sink drama about this unusual blended family in the 1920s Montana, and the intricate dynamics that emerge from so many worlds colliding and so many long-held attachments threatened from without -- which would still have been excellent.
The acting would remain a strength. Benedict Cumberbatch takes on arguably his most challenging role, that of a comprehensible monster. He straddles the line in his performance between pure menace and contemptibleness, to something pitiable and even sympathetic. Jesse Plemmons has the unshowiest character, but finds layers within his taciturn demeanor. Kirsten Dunst expertly communicates the sense of alienation for Rose in her new surroundings, and the quiet desperation she experiences which makes her turn to drink. And Kodi Smit-McPhee cuts the image of unlikely vengeance, an anti-villain whose shrinking presence masks an unsuspecting effectiveness in his chosen tasks.

So would the film’s impeccable craft. *The Power of the Dog* is awash in scenic beauty, with sweeping shots of the New Zealand frontier doubling for the fields and canyons of old Montana. The visuals within walls are just as striking, with sharp compositions and stagings that sell the thorny relationship dynamics amid the main quartet. The score perfectly suits the Western atmosphere, with dulcet guitar strings and other acoustic accompaniment setting the tone, as discordant notes emerge when situations go sideways.

Most importantly, writer-director Jane Campion and her editor, Peter Sciberras, aren’t afraid to let scenes breathe. There’s a recurring sense of dread in the film, as a judicious approach to cuts crafts a certain tension whenever two characters share the frame. At times, the film proceeds at a languid pace, but that makes room for the acting to truly thrive, and for the unspoken affections and strains between the different characters to grow and contort as a scene, and the movie, progress.

All of these elements would allow *The Power of the Dog* to succeed whatever direction its narrative took. At heart, the film is a character study, as interested in delving into what’s in the hearts and minds of its four leads as it is in advancing any central story. But there is a ghost in the machine, a central conflict that affects all of their lives when you step back and gaze at the bigger picture, which comes into focus in the film’s final act.

There is something of a feint when Phil takes Peter under his wing. It’s easy to believe that the two men have formed an unlikely bond, born of shared differences from the accepted sexuality of the era, lovers and mentors who faded away, and father figures who chose to leave in multiple ways. Their scenes are compelling, as ones which not only offer a softer side of the film’s most significant figure and antagonist, but which suggest he’s luring the boy away from his mother. There’s something both heartening and tragic about the suggestion, something to give Peter strength that comes at a terrible price.

And yet, Peter already had a hidden strength, or at least the strongest of convictions which Phil could never shake, in which this bond appears to be a mere cover. It is an opportunity for Peter to eliminate the man who was cruel to him in their first interaction, who is, if not the source, than certainly an accelerant for his mother’s unhappiness. Ironically, in the shadow of Phil’s performatively toxic masculinity, it’s Peter who defends his family, using methods of trust and attention to detail that allow him to get the upper hand on the man who so underestimates him. It is righteous yet terrifying, the birth of a killer made by a combination of brilliance and homegrown horrors.

The plot emerges almost as stealthily as Peter’s scheme does, only revealing itself once the time is way, but snapping into place in hindsight. That is the greatest strength of *The Power of the Dog*, a film that stands on its own with the strength of its craft and characters, only to tell a surprising yet sound story that emerges, slowly but surely, in the spaces between them.

A perfect example of "show don't tell", the movie doesn't explain everything to you, it let's the viewer discover things for himself. A great piece of cinema.

It is a slow yet interesting movie with a surprising ending. My only complaint is that I wished for more insight in the main character’s past, reasons for some reactions and relationship with his brother.