2022 Best Picture Review: The Power of the Dog
Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch, left) spends some quality time with Peter Gordon (Kodi Smit-McPhee) in the barn of the Burbanks’ ranch. Cumberbatch is nominated for Best Actor and Smit-McPhee is nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 94th Academy Awards.
This time, Tom writes about The Power of the Dog, the presumptive Best Picture favorite starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Kirsten Dunst, and Jesse Plemons, all of whom account for four of the film’s field-leading twelve nominations. Written and directed by Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog is available on Netflix.
“There’s a cliff, way out back at the ranch with initials and ‘1805’ carved into it. It must have been some fella from the Lewis and Clark expedition. They were real men in those days.”
Let me just start this off by saying: if you haven’t seen The Power of the Dog, and your parents mention something about how it looks good - they almost definitely won’t like it! This movie is not Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or Unforgiven or Tombstone or even another more recent Western focused on the interrelationship between masculinity and sexuality, Brokeback Mountain. No, The Power of the Dog is a measured, deliberate, surgical film. It’s a movie that feels like a methodical Greek tragedy in long form. It’s also meant to be watched more than once (which I confirmed in preparing for this review). Just like for King Richard, I’m doing my best to avoid spoilers here.
Written and directed by Jane Campion (The Piano) and adapted from the 1967 novel of the same name by Thomas Savage, The Power of the Dog focuses on the Burbank brothers, Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George (Jesse Plemons), whose family intertwines with a mother and son, Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter Gordon (Kodi Smit-McPhee) when George marries Rose. Set in Montana in the 1820s (but actually filmed in Campion’s native New Zealand due to budgetary restrictions - sorry about it, Sam Elliott), the film uses the expanses of the countryside to contradictorily create a claustrophobic atmosphere that heightens tension anytime the tormentor Phil ridicules Rose’s piano playing or mocks Peter’s lisp. The mountains box the characters in and feel entirely separate from the outside world. This is confirmed by Jonny Greenwood’s often stilted score which at times feels like a horror score. It’s clear there’s more going on under the surface. Because the Gordons are trapped on this ranch with Phil, the remainder of the film focuses on Peter’s evolving relationship with him and Rose’s fear of the same.
The writing in this film is cold. On purpose. You aren’t supposed to feel warmly towards these characters, with the possible exceptions of the affable George and the distressed Rose. However, because she plays on tropes of sexuality and masculinity, Campion masterfully builds a duality. Once the end hit and the credits rolled, I looked back at some previous scenes and everything clicked into place in a different way. I realized that the impression that I got from one scene in my first viewing was exactly the sleight of hand Campion intended, but the actual message is in an alternative viewing of that scene. Again, The Power of the Dog is a movie that’s meant to be watched twice. Now, whether you’d like to sit through a slow-paced, methodical Western featuring Cumberbatch’s not-that-great Old West accent, Smit-McPhee’s furtive, darting glances, and Dunst’s building despair for four hours instead of two is an open question, but in a way I would compare this film to a Christopher Nolan entry like Memento or The Prestige, or even something like The Usual Suspects. The final act hits and you’re like “oooohhhhh, I get it now….wait, was it like this the whole time?!” And after a rewatch — yes, yes it was. This was my favorite element of the movie.
Campion’s incisive writing is in full effect most prominently in the second half of the movie, and although the psychological terror inflicted by Phil onto Rose in the first half (that scene with the banjo and the piano, my Lord) is crucial toward understanding Phil’s character, it’s the developing connection between Phil and Peter that acts as the emotional engine. Phil is largely reprehensible throughout, but his scenes with Peter in the second half of the movie provide much-needed context to Phil’s behavior, even if it doesn’t fully excuse it. Their apparent friendship coincides with Rose’s deterioration into alcoholism and depression. Rose is a frayed, broken version of herself in the second half as Phil allows himself to become slightly more vulnerable, with Peter drafting behind him like a pilot fish in the wake of a shark trying to get close to him.
The film’s message crystallizes as Peter and Phil become closer. Phil regales Peter with stories from the old days about his mentor, Bronco Henry, a man who he says taught him everything he knows about being a rancher and a man - clearly a nod to both his masculinity and (implied until it isn’t really) homosexuality. Bronco Henry was an excellent hunter, a man who could cook coal-fired elk liver (yum), and a man of countless other talents, a man who could do anything - a consummate figure of Western masculinity, power, and control. But the way Campion portrays Phil’s reverence for the man exhibits a clear parallel: Phil has become Bronco Henry to Peter, who reminds him of his younger self. Not only that, but the film also indirectly comments on how people lionize those who have died. Was Bronco Henry the greatest cowboy who ever lived? Maybe, I don’t know. Never met the guy. But I can tell you from the power of inference that Phil’s relationship with him was likely much more complicated than he is willing to let anyone learn. Possibly abusive, probably grooming, most likely something that Phil didn’t understand the true nature of until it was over. It’s just great, subtle writing - there is much more in between the lines than there is in the lines themselves. It’s excellent, nuanced character work.
As for the acting, all four main performers are nominated for Oscars, and at least two of them absolutely deserve it. Cumberbatch and Smit-McPhee in particular are the emotional powerhouses here. There’s definitely some criticism to be lobbied, though - in my opinion, Cumberbatch played the character a bit too self-serious. He definitely feels like a guy playing a cowboy character. That being said, Phil is a character who sort of plays a role in his own life - that of the hard-nosed cowboy who’s not afraid to get his (ungloved) hands dirty. And to his credit, Cumberbatch is legitimately simultaneously sadistic, vulnerable, defensive, and reactive in the role.
Smit-McPhee plays Cumberbatch’s counterpart well. For all of Phil’s phony, macho, overcompensating bluster, Smit-McPhee plays the role of a awkward, lanky, effeminate, bookish contrast to Phil, the perfect gawky foil that Phil likely once believed himself to be. Interestingly, in an interview with The Wrap, Smit-McPhee discussed an autoimmune disease that he has, ankylosing spondylitis, which has “arthritis-like symptoms,” which he felt connected him to the character and helped him feel comfortable opening up since the movie came out. “It’s why now I talk about my autoimmune disease,” he said. “I’ve had very abrupt and intense reminders on how temporary life can be. And I’m so humbled to receive credit for this performance, and I love that I might get to be present during the awards-season events. But I’m also conscious of my priorities as a son and a brother and a human being. I really try to view the bigger picture all the time.”
The 25-year-old is the favorite for the Best Supporting Actor award (though Troy Kotsur from CODA broke his recent wave of momentum with a win at the Screen Actors Guild awards), and if Smit-McPhee walks away with the statue, I wouldn’t be mad about it.
As for Dunst and Plemons…I don’t know. I love them both as performers. I still think of Dunst as a 10-year-old in Interview with the Vampire who acted circles around Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and Plemons as a show-stealer in Breaking Bad, Game Night, Black Mirror, and so much more. I just…don’t see it here, especially for Plemons. Dunst, for her part, carries a decent chunk of the film. I just don’t think her performance is as vital to this film as, say, Caitriona Balfe is to Belfast, and maybe even Cate Blanchett to Nightmare Alley. She’s great, but she remains static for about two-thirds of the movie and loses my attention closer to the end.
This goes double for Plemons, who disappears for a lot of this movie and is a tertiary character in his brother’s emotional torment. The Power of the Dog is very much about Phil, Peter, and Rose. Not as much about George. But whatever. I can’t really complain I guess, because I love Jesse Plemons.
As for an Oscar-nominated technical aspect of the film, Jonny Greenwood’s score adds an air of mystery, discomfort, and uneasy undertones to the events depicted. There isn’t a sweeping, John Williams or Ennio Morricone soundtrack which fit perfectly in a typical expansive Western. The message is simple: what you’re seeing on screen doesn’t quite feel right. It’s distorted and feels off-key throughout. There is pain here. But not pain in the way that, for example, Nicholas Britell melodiously conveys in the score for If Beale Street Could Talk. Here, the longtime Radiohead guitarist relies heavily on staccato. The score is stunted, it’s stifled, and it’s dissonant. It’s yet another indicator of the film’s theme of feeling trapped, on edge, and on the defensive.
Greenwood’s idea for the main theme that opens the film was to take a tune from a banjo and place it onto the cello instead. “You get that nice confusion of it being a sound you recognize, but it’s not a style you’re familiar with, so it’s like familiar and unfamiliar at the same time,” Greenwood stated in his “Anatomy of a Score” video for Netflix with Campion. As for his frenetic, haunting piano that tends to follow Rose through her mental and emotional descent, Greenwood described the instrument as “hugely symbolic for Rose and her social awkwardness,” so he decided to “push it into being inhuman in how it sounds” to mirror Rose’s unraveling. It’s an excellent score and Greenwood is one of the best composers working today. His other 2021 film, Spencer, arguably should have received a Best Original Score nomination as well.
All-in-all, The Power of the Dog is a strong Best Picture contender, though I don’t feel that it should be the overwhelming favorite. I think this was a pretty good cycle for movies, and when we look back on this year in five or ten years, I don’t think there will be a tight emotional connection to this movie if it wins Best Picture as there was with Moonlight or Titanic or Forrest Gump. On the other hand though, it’s miles ahead of Crash and Green Book. And if it doesn’t win Best Picture…let’s just hope it doesn’t lose out to Don’t Look Up. Because that would be a worse decision than Phil Burbank’s refusal to wear gloves.
Rating: 8.5/10