After a twelve-year hiatus, Jane Campion makes her victorious return to filmmaking with the darkly captivating The Power of the Dog, a revisionist western adapted by Campion from Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel. Set in 1920s Montana, the film follows menacing rancher Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) as he torments his brother’s new wife and her teenage son.
Brothers Phil (Cumberbatch) and George Burbank (Jesse Plemons) could hardly be more different. George is quiet and mild-mannered, preferring clean clothes and trips into town over working the fields with his domineering cowboy brother and the impressionable ranch hands. Phil, meanwhile, revels in getting his hands dirty, playing the macho leader, and sharing anecdotes about his old mentor, Bronco Henry.
Not much of a conversationalist, George sits back and lets Phil take the lead but is disconcerted by Phil’s casual cruelty towards others and chooses to distance himself from it when possible. This leads George to meet Rose (Kirsten Dunst), a widow and the mother of Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a striking, willowy teenage boy who enjoys crafting fake flowers and is studying to be a doctor. Phil is quick to mock Peter for his effeminate nature, and the ranch hands follow suit. Despite his mean attitude, Phil cherishes his brotherly bond with George and becomes resentful when George marries Rose, and she and Peter move to the ranch. In response, Phil begins his relentless torment of Rose and Peter.
Phil wages psychological warfare rather than physical violence. An expert banjo player, Phil taunts Rose with tunes, often keeping just out of sight, mocking both her musical and personal struggles. Although he is never physical with her, the threat of violence looms, lurking around every corner, the promise of it in his menacing looks, erratic behaviour, and manipulative tactics. It’s this exhausting, ceaseless intimidation that drives Rose to alcohol and total misery, and which disturbs viewers, keeping us unsettled and on edge throughout the film. When Peter arrives for the summer break, he suffers the men’s mockery but is quietly determined to help his mother and put an end to Phil’s antics.
What follows is an intricate character study of both Phil and Peter as hidden layers and shared secrets come into play, shifting their relationship and our understanding of their characters. In doing so, the film subverts western tropes and ideas of masculinity in both familiar and unexpected ways, revealing a suppressed tenderness in Phil and a quiet cunning in Pete.
It’s unsurprising that Phil, a homophobic bully who frequently mentions Bronco Henry with reverence, harbours repressed homoerotic desires. We’ve seen this character before in media and literature, and the trope has a name—the armoured closet gay. And yet, Campion and Cumberbatch, along with cinematographer Ari Wegner, manage to elevate Phil far beyond cliché by rendering the facets of his character with grace and nuance.
Phil constantly makes us feel uneasy due to his erratic behaviour and intimidation tactics, but Peter too is somewhat unsettling. While Peter seems like an awkward, kind character, the film drops subtle hints along the way as to a disquieting nature within. Campion uses our perception of him as kind-hearted to deliberately shock us with contradictory actions, such as his casual ability to cuddle rabbits then kill them for surgery practice. His ease with that process, although in keeping with the story’s setting and his medical interests, reflects another dimension of Peter’s character and serves as a clue for the film’s final act. Indeed, Campion deposits many clues along the way for the observant viewer, but cleverly masks them by keeping our unease centred around Phil.
The film has an incredible ensemble cast, but much of the story’s power stems from Cumberbatch and Smit-McPhee as they portray Phil and Peter’s evolving dynamics. As the two characters grow closer, their developing bond keeps us on edge and gives rise to many questions about each of their motivations regarding the change in their relationship. It amounts to an eerie dance that enthrals viewers throughout the film’s quietly long runtime of two hours, eight minutes.
In addition to its strong cast, direction, and adapted screenplay, The Power of the Dog also boasts sharp cinematography and an unnerving score. Wegner easily captures New Zealand’s sweeping landscapes, but also delicately renders the shifts between intimacy and the uncanny, particularly in Cumberbatch’s scenes with Smit-McPhee and Dunst. Meanwhile, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood provides a haunting score that complements and enhances the tension onscreen.
The Power of the Dog is currently streaming on Netflix.
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