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The American West was once known as a treacherous place, where only the most rugged men and women could survive. But in The Power of the Dog, one rugged rancher finds himself living with people he sees as lacking in grit—and he makes sure that they know what he thinks of them.
The Power of the Dog journeys through Montana in 1925 with wealthy rancher Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch). Phil is the toughest kind of cowboy—the kind who won’t clean up or keep his mouth shut for anyone. When his brother, George (Jesse Plemons) marries widow Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and brings her home to the ranch, Phil goes out of his way to torment her and her scrawny, awkward son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). But when Peter spends the summer at the ranch, Phil suddenly decides to take him under his wing, making Rose even more anxious.
Whether the brothers’ business takes them through wide-open prairies, to remote Western towns, or back home to their ranch, the settings here are breathtaking. Each feels like an element in a grand artwork, carefully planned and lovingly painted with just the right period details. But while those open spaces start the film with a sense of quiet serenity, the characters and their relationships soon tear it apart.
The personalities here couldn’t be more different. Phil is a man’s man; he loves doing the dirty work, and he’s not interested in washing off the grime. George, meanwhile, wears suits while running cattle, and he falls in love with a sweet woman who runs a respectable inn. Back at the ranch, George tries to make Rose feel at home, but Phil becomes more and more intolerable. And while Peter worries about his mother’s obvious decline, he spends much of his time either intently studying or learning to ride with help from Phil.
This is certainly an unexpected performance for Benedict Cumberbatch, who tends to play characters who are quiet, misunderstood, even awkward—but often brilliant and generally likable. Here, however, he plays a man who, on the surface, is just plain hateful. He verbally abuses his brother, he uses mockery and insults as his main form of communication, and when Rose arrives, he sets out to make her life absolutely miserable. Though there’s more beneath his cruel, confident exterior, he’s definitely not the kind of character that you’ll like. But he embraces the pure nastiness of his character, turning in an attention-grabbing performance.
The Power of the Dog is a quiet, deliberate, and beautiful film—but it’s also a deceptive one. There’s more going on here than you might expect. And when it all comes together in the end, the power of the characters’ story might just surprise you.
The Power of the Dog is showing in theaters starting on November 17, 2021 and will begin streaming on Netflix on December 1, 2021.
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