Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hours, 6 minutes
Director: Jane Campion
Quick Impressions:
I have a new life goal to add to my bucket list. If The Power of the Dog ever becomes a stage play, I want the part of the housekeeper. (Note: this would have to be community theater in a very small town.) I would give anything to say these lines:
“They dug up that graveyard to make way for the new highway. Among those buried there was a friend of mine. A clumsy tractor driver broke open the coffin, and they found her hair had continued to grow after her death. The whole coffin just stuffed with her lovely golden hair. Except for a few feet from the end, where it was gray.”
I got so excited when these words echoed out through the bleak kitchen. “These are the best lines in the movie!” I raved to my family. “These are the lines I would want to say.”
Okay, I’m mostly kidding about playing the part one day, but I’m entirely serious about loving this dialogue. (If I were writing an academic paper on this film, this quotation would be my first point of attack.) It comes absolutely out of nowhere. (Well, not nowhere. The housekeeper talks in the kitchen at other times, too.) They’re just great lines. They reminded me of several things simultaneously. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (the well-researched print anthology, not the film), a similar moment with the gossiping kitchen staff in the 1933 Best Picture winner Cavalcade, and, of course, that this film is a literary adaptation of a novel (quite likely to include arrestingly worded instances of foreshadowing).
This is clearly foreshadowing (and also gives general hints about how to understand the often-bemusing story). Death is coming. Appearances are not what they seem. People hide their true selves behind false exteriors. Be careful of lovely twine that appears beautiful. (There might be something wrong with it!) It’s also, perhaps, a reminder that Kirsten Dunst’s (blonde) character finds living in this household so emotionally torturous. You should see her reacting to this awful (seemingly out of left field) story. Even if the words weren’t great (and they are), Dunst’s facial reactions make the moment a torturous delight for the audience to experience.
I mention this moment first because it stood out to me so powerfully. It seems like a small (odd) thing, but two hours of small, odd thing after small, odd thing are exactly what make The Power of the Dog slowly build to become such a powerful film.
(I’m also glad the film released on Netflix, so I was able to go back and write down the dialogue word for word. This past weekend, my eighteen-year-old son shocked me by saying, “I guess movies in the theater really aren’t coming back.” I was stunned because I’ve been going every week for the past few months. He explained that everything good now releases to stream almost right away. From my point of view, this fall, going to the movie theater has become essential again because there are many must-see movies not available at home. I’m curious now (and nervous for movie theaters) because my son has a way of staying ahead of trends, and he might be onto something that I don’t know.)
The Good:
Back in 1994, I got so excited watching Anna Paquin win Best Supporting Actress for The Piano. I wasn’t used to seeing someone even younger than I was win an Oscar, and she was so adorably thrilled. I thought, “I should watch The Piano.” But I couldn’t convince anyone with a driver’s license that this was a necessary activity. Then I remember a year or so later, The Piano came on a premium channel at a time when I was busy. And I thought to myself, “I’m going to regret not watching this.”
Now, twenty-six years later, my self-fulfilling prophecy has finally come true. (You’d think I would have gotten around to watching it in all that time. I have no excuse.) I’ll say this, though. There is no way The Power of the Dog won’t be a key player in this year’s Oscar race, and I don’t think I can continue thinking about it in the proper context without first watching the film writer/director Jane Campion won an Oscar for writing. So now I’m definitely going to watch The Piano. I just done it haven’t yet.)
The further I get from The Power of the Dog, the more I like it, and I just watched it a few hours ago. At this rate, by tomorrow morning, I’ll probably think it’s the greatest film of all time. What I like best about it is that it’s so different from the other films getting Best Picture buzz that I’ve seen this year. (I’ve liked all of those I’ve seen, too. I just enjoy variety.)
Before watching this film, I knew only three things about it. 1) Jane Campion wrote and directed it. 2) People are calling Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance the greatest of his career. 3) It’s a slow burn of a film with a gut-punch ending.
Watching, I came away most impressed with the director and the cinematographer (Ari Wegner) because of the sustained tension and near constant feeling of terror the scenes induce in the audience even though nothing in particular is happening. You see one character standing around on an open plain and inwardly cringe in horror as the sensation of your worst nightmares overwhelms you. Jonny Greenwood’s score helps create this odd mood, too. (He gave us the same type of score in Spencer and in several Paul Thomas Anderson movies. I’m beginning to realize I’m a fan of Greenwood’s work, which is so weird because I don’t go out of my way to listen to Radiohead and am so clueless when it comes to what music is cool.) (I don’t even know how to describe cool music. I mean, I don’t think someone who was into it would call it “cool.”) (I myself am about as cool as Marge Simpson.) (I always think of her when I’m trying to be cool.) (“Well how the hell do you be cool?”)
The Power of the Dog is set in Montana, 1925, but it’s filmed in New Zealand. You’d never guess this is the same country where Gandalf once walked in epic grandeur. The starkness of the landscape is oppressive. High mountains loom in the distance. The ground is almost unbearably flat, cracked, and dry. The male protagonists (Cumberbatch’s Phil Burbank and his brother George, played by Jesse Plemons) are cattle ranchers, but that’s incidental to the driving forces of the story, all of which center on Phil’s inability to get along with his brother’s new wife Rose (Kirsten Dunst), her eccentric son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), or anyone else really. (He refuses to take a bath to have dinner with his own parents. At one point, he beats up a horse. He’s prickly to say the least.) (The men who work with Phil do appear to like him, but that’s probably because they enjoy his cantankerous swagger.)
At every moment of this movie, we have the feeling that something horrible is about to happen (and that it would almost be a relief if it did).
Watching with us, my daughter noted, “I like the wide-open spaces because it makes it look so lonely. Even the rooms are big and open. And when there are people it’s too crowded. My God this is so scary!” She was very attuned to the eerie feel of the whole film and commented on it semi-constantly. “God, this movie is so panic inducing. This makes me uncomfortable,” she noted at another time. (“It makes me uncomfortable, too,” my dad assured her. “And I’m not a thirteen-year-old girl.” (Neither is she until January!))
We notice quickly that Cumberbatch plays an odd character, then realize more gradually that everyone else does, too. Our sympathies constantly shift. We feel like we’re trying to solve a mystery, but we don’t even know what that mystery is. We also feel a tremendous amount of suspense, even though we don’t have a clear idea of what we’re waiting for.
“I can’t take this!” my daughter noted at one point. “This move is so scary for no reason.”
“This reminds me of how they do Rebecca,” my husband noted as the room swallowed up a tortured-looking Kirsten Dunst, and she dissolved into her terrorized inability to play the piano. (He’s not wrong. There’s even a moment that made me think of the deep focus photography in Hitchcock’s Rebecca. It’s not quite the same, but we see Dunst through the furniture from a very odd perspective.)
At one point, my daughter playfully screamed, “Aaaah! How has there been a tonal shift from Uneasy to Different Uneasy?”
She’s right. We’re always afraid of someone, but of whom? That changes! It’s very hard to be certain of anyone in this story.
The performances are excellent, which is no surprise because the actors are given great (if unusual) material. They’re generously shot, too. We sometimes get what feels like several minutes at a time of Kirsten Dunst saying nothing and being the only one on screen. (You watch and think, “If you want to win an Oscar, working with Jane Campion seems like a good start,” because the story really belongs to the actors, and they seem to have a lot of freedom to express their characters. The story is in no hurry to progress, and when it does progress, it progresses unconventionally.)
Once I was watching the film, I was honestly more excited about Dunst than Cumberbatch. (I’m not sure that says much about their performances. I’ve noticed that’s a repeating pattern in my preferences. “Yes, yes, that lead actor is great like everyone says, but did you notice the supporting actress, though?” I just had similar impressions of King Richard last week. Maybe I just like supporting actresses.)
Dunst really is good, though. (I’m always kind of rooting for her because I thought she was an extraordinarily talented child actress in Interview with the Vampire and Little Women. I’m kind of happy to see her getting a juicy part in an acclaimed movie that everyone will see.) Her character is so sad. Strangely, early on this makes her sympathetic, and then there’s a turn, and she becomes hard to trust, which is weird because her behavior doesn’t really change. (Something must change.) She’s giving a very good performance and deserves a nomination for Best Supporting Actress herself.
Cumberbatch is excellent, too. (It’s so hard to say what I want without spoiling the movie, so I’m trying to be very careful.) So much of what makes both of their performances special involves our shifting sympathies and changes in how we perceive these characters. We think we know them. Then we think again. And again. And again. They play their characters consistently, and yet our impressions of these characters constantly change (which must be achieved, in large part, through nuance in the performances of the actors). We learn far more about Cumberbatch’s character through what he doesn’t say. To understand him, we have to learn to read his silences (and try to ignore his acerbic speech).
Kodi Smit-McPhee was a good child actor, too. I always think of him as the voice of ParaNorman which is funny because there are a couple of scenes in this film that reminds me of Coraline. (It’s when characters crawl through a tunnel and emerge in another world. Kind of.) Smit-McPhee plays the character who may keep us guessing the longest (though in the end, he seems less mysterious than Cumberbatch’s Phil).
Jesse Plemons plays George, the character who frustrates me most in the entire movie because he is never home! (Come home, George! What is keeping you?)
Best Scene:
Thomasin McKenzie is in this movie. (After her excellent performance in JoJo Rabbit, I expected her to be in a lot more movies. I guess she is, and I just haven’t seen them. In fact, she’s going to play Kerri Strug???? I’m extremely interested. But before I go too far down that rabbit hole…) There’s a moment in this film involving McKenzie and a rabbit that happens just after that great speech by the housekeeper I’ve already mentioned. This is a real turning point in the story. At an earlier point, my husband made a bold prediction about what would happen to that rabbit. We were very surprised by what happened instead, and I think what we get in this scene is terribly significant.
Most Oscar-worthy Moment, Kirsten Dunst:
Dunst actually plays the piano in this film, but the scene in which her character fails to play the piano is probably more significant.
Even better, I like the moment where Rose is having tea with her son and keeps missing the teacup. Nothing about this is very subtle, so if you don’t like Dunst in this movie, this is where you’ll hate her most. But I enjoyed watching her. (It’s like a Eugene O’Neil character somehow wandered into this story and is trapped here, living out an existential nightmare.)
Most Oscar-worthy Moment, Benedict Cumberbatch:
Possibly best is Phil’s final conversation with Peter (because we know the most about Phil then).
Best Scene Visually:
This film is so strong visually that I’m having trouble choosing a single moment that stands apart from the rest. The vast, empty spaces do seem to swallow up the characters in a most unnerving way. There’s an awfully subtext-heavy scene when Cumberbatch’s character is driving some kind of post into the ground that’s almost comical. And it’s interesting when Peter puts paper flowers on his father’s grave. Every scene looks captivating (and subtly manages to unnerve the audience).
Best Action Sequence:
Would you call it action when someone plays the banjo while someone else is playing the piano? (Keep in mind, he does it in a very creepy, encroaching way.)
The Negatives:
I’m not crazy about Benedict Cumberbatch’s American accent, but I will say that once we learn something about his character mid-way through the film, I began to suspect that his manner of speaking might be a bit affected, artificial, played up. At any rate, I like his accent better in this film than in Dr. Strange.
While I was double-checking the movie’s rating, I noticed that imdb categorizes this film as both a western and a romance. I’m not sure I would call it either of those. (Netflix has it classified as Movies Based on Books, Dramas, nearer the mark for sure.)
Watching with increasing suspicion, my dad observed at one point, “Is this one of these weirdo art movies?” He then noted something he suspected about Cumberbatch’s character which is quite evident and clearly a motivating factor for Phil.
I wouldn’t call this a Western or a romance. If you watch expecting one of those, the film will subvert your expectations, and you may be terribly disappointed. I can’t go into this in greater detail without spoiling the movie. We found the film so intriguing that I immediately ordered the novel by Thomas Savage from Amazon. Right now, it’s listed as #1 Best Seller in LGBTQ classic fiction, and it contains an afterword by Annie Proulx. You might know her name because she wrote the short story “Brokeback Mountain.” That’s a romance. If there is a romance in The Power of the Dog, then it would probably appeal more to the director of Rebecca than to the director of Brokeback Mountain. (Well, for all I know this is Ang Lee’s new favorite movie. His projects are all quite different. I’m not trying to put words in his mouth. I’m just trying to hint around at something without spoiling this film for people who haven’t seen it.)
Elements of the movie may be too ambiguous for some. On reflection, I think the ending is pretty clear cut, but some may find it too mysterious for their liking. I think the #1 problem most people will have with this movie is going into it with the wrong expectations. If you’re seeing it because you’re a fan of any of the actors or the director or you’re obsessed with the Oscars, you’ll probably like The Power of the Dog. But if someone turns it on thinking, “Ooh, a Western starring Benedict Cumberbatch!” or “Ooh! A love story starring Benedict Cumberbatch!” that may a recipe for bitter disappointment.
Also, those mountains do not look like a dog. (That’s not a serious complaint. In fact, one reading of the film may even support the fact that they don’t actually look like a dog.) As we watched, my dad noted skeptically, “Can you see a dog in that mountain?”
We all answered, “No.”
I said, “You have to be very special to see the dog in the mountain.” Then (because I’d been reading the trivia section on the movie’s imdb page after confirming that I’d seen Thomasin McKenzie), I told everyone, “I read that Benedict Cumberbatch smoked so many rolled cigarettes for this that he got nicotine poisoning three times.”
My husband replied, “Really? Like that’s an actual fact?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Then my six-year-old, who hadn’t been watching the movie with us, strolled into the room and joked with impeccable timing, “Then for some reason, he could see the dog in the mountain.”
Overall:
I’ve probably said enough about The Power of the Dog for now because I’m sure I’ll be writing about it again in the future. I’m pretty sure it will be nominated for Best Picture. It may even win. My daughter is crossing her fingers for a win by anything but West Side Story. “That can’t win again,” she complained. “It already won once. It can’t win every time. That’s ridiculous. It’s not that good.” She hasn’t seen Spielberg’s version yet, though.