«The Power of the Dog is a sublime novel that deserves to live on the big screen. I couldn’t stop thinking about the story; it really bewitched me. The themes of masculinity, nostalgia and betrayal are an intoxicating mix – said Jane Campion – it was the first time I worked with male protagonists: an exciting thing».
The Power of the Dog is Campion’s first feature after 12 years. The last movie for the big screen from New Zealand director and screenwriter, Oscar winner in 1994 for The Piano, was Bright Star (2009). After that, she created, wrote and directed, between 2013 and 2017, the thirteen episodes of the noir series Top of the Lake.
Now she comes back writing and directing the adaptation of Thomas Savage’s homonymous cult novel of 1967 that was definitely ahead of its time in the representation of repressed sexuality.
The story is set in a ranch in Montana in ’20s: the brothers Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Burbank (Jesse Plemons) have slept in the same room for 40 years. Together they manage the daily management of their huge livestock. George is a methodical and respectable man, while Phil is a vortex of energy with worrying dark aspects: despite being an avid reader and a skilled craftsman, he is also fierce and violent, plagued by deep homophobia.
When George marries the local widow Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and she moves to the ranch with her troubled son Peter (Kodi Smit-Mcphee), Phil is upset and immediately proposes to destroy what he sees as an intolerable intruder, accompanied by a son whom he considers contemptuously a “pussy”.
The Power of the Dog has echoes of Kazan’s classic East of Eden (1955) and Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005). Campion uses this story to explore the different strands of the human psyche and its pathologies.
Oscar Cosulich
THE POWER OF THE DOG
New Zealand, Australia 2021, Directed by Jane Campion With Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Lenght 125’
Distribution Netflix
