Known for her stripped-down storytelling style and striking visual composition, director Jane Campion became the second woman in Hollywood history to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar for her 1993 film The Piano. Campion’s latest, The Power of The Dog, marks a return to the big screen for the filmmaker who more recently dabbled in TV, notably with the mesmerising BBC drama Top of The Lake.
Based on the 1967 novel of the same name by Thomas Savage, The Power Of The Dog stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst. The film also features a stunning turn from Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road, Let Me In) and a haunting score courtesy of award-winning composer and member of the band Radiohead, Johnny Greenwood.
Phil Burbank (Cumberbatch) and his brother George (Plemons) are the sons of wealthy Montana farmers living on a ranch in the early 1920s. While mild-mannered George has dreams of entering public life, his brother Phil prides himself on his rough, ready and unpleasant nature.
When his brother brings home Rose (Dunst at her brilliant best), a recently widowed cafe owner, and introduces her as his new wife, a disapproving Phil proceeds to turn her life and that of her teenage son Peter (Smit- McPhee) into a living hell.
On his return home from college for the summer holidays, Peter finds Rose at her lowest ebb and struggling to stay sober, having suffered daily taunts and cruelty from her brother in law. Later, the young man discovers that Phil has been keeping a huge secret from all those who know him.
Consequently, Phil takes it upon himself to teach the young man how to be a real cowboy and avoid being mocked for his slightly effeminate mannerisms. Campion has once again excelled herself with this multilayered and stunning adaptation of a hugely compelling story. In true Campion form, the audience is left not only secondguessing every character’s motives, but we are also often deliberately wrong footed, only to be rewarded afterwards.
Initially offering Phil as an uncultured, cruel and unpleasant brute, Cumberbatch does a fantastic job in humanising a character who has clearly been damaged by the burden of a secret he’s been carrying for decades.
Far from being the uncivilised philistine we were led to believe, Phil is in fact, a highly intelligent man who has had to deliberately dumb-down his own artistic flair to appear tougher. Elevated by Ari Wegner’s stunning cinematography and Grant Major’s glorious production design, The Power of the Dog is also a film about what is left unsaid.
Although not presenting the classic unreliable narrator trope per se, it is a film that is able to pull the rug from underneath its audience in the most perfect way.
Stunning from start to finish.
