The Power of the Dog could just as well be called The Power of Benedict Cumberbatch, said Deborah Ross in The Spectator, as he is so “spectacular” in this “wonderfully complex” western. The Sherlock actor plays a “ruggedly masculine cowboy” named Phil who runs a cattle ranch with his brother George (Jesse Plemons) in 1920s Montana. The pair are opposites: Phil is “clever, but mean-spirited and cruel”, and so macho he can castrate a bull with his bare hands; while George is “slower, softer, kinder, stockier”.
Their equilibrium is upset by the arrival in their lives of Rose (Kirsten Dunst), a widow who marries George. When she comes to live at the ranch with her delicate teenage son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Phil immediately resolves to make their lives “hell”. It’s been said the film is about toxic masculinity – but it is more than that: it explores “the pain of anyone who is expected to be a certain way, and conforms at the expense of their true identity”. Phil, a man who knows he will never be loved, is revealed to be as tragic as he is brutal.
Director Jane Campion has produced an “indecently powerful” film, said Kevin Maher in The Times, in which not a line of dialogue is wasted; and while Cumberbatch is “mesmerising”, he’s not acting in a vacuum – Dunst too is “formidable”. Campion won an Oscar in 1994 for her “very different frontier romance”, The Piano, said Danny Leigh in the FT; her new film was also shot in her native New Zealand – which doesn’t quite work (your mind may wander to The Lord of the Rings). Still, with “a sure touch and epic sweep”, she has created a film “loaded with menace but something rarer too: unpredictability”. This is “potent cinema” that glints “like a new knife”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Questions abound over the FAA’s management of BoeingTalking Points Some have called the agency’s actions underwhelming
-
Lou Berney’s 6 favorite books with powerful storytellingFeature The award-winning author recommends works by Dorothy B. Hughes, James McBride, and more
-
Robert Redford: the Hollywood icon who founded the Sundance Film FestivalFeature Redford’s most lasting influence may have been as the man who ‘invigorated American independent cinema’ through Sundance
-
Lou Berney’s 6 favorite books with powerful storytelling
Feature The award-winning author recommends works by Dorothy B. Hughes, James McBride, and more
-
Robert Redford: the Hollywood icon who founded the Sundance Film Festival
Feature Redford’s most lasting influence may have been as the man who ‘invigorated American independent cinema’ through Sundance
-
Book reviews: ‘All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation’ and ‘Mother Mary Come to Me’Feature Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘balls to the wall’ memoir and Arundhati Roy’s terrifying mother
-
6 rustic homes on ranchesFeature Featuring copper kitchen counters in Colorado and a 380-acre property in California
-
Steve: a ‘gripping’ drama starring Cillian MurphyThe Week Recommends Murphy plays the frazzled headmaster of a boarding school for ‘delinquent’ boys in this bold Indie film
-
The Lady from the Sea: a ‘thrillingly contemporary’ Ibsen adaptationThe Week Recommends ‘Luminous’ cast dazzle in Simon Stone’s ‘hugely enjoyable’ production
-
Black Rabbit: slick crime thriller set in a high-end New York restaurantThe Week Recommends Two Manhattan brothers resort to ‘ever-more high-stakes’ schemes to tackle ‘huge’ gambling debts in the ‘glossy’ series
-
One Battle After Another: a ‘terrifically entertaining’ watchThe Week Recommends Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest release is a ‘high-octane action thriller’ and a ‘surefire Oscar frontrunner’
