Directed by:
Jane CampionScreenplay:
Jane CampionCinematography:
Ari WegnerComposer:
Jonny GreenwoodCast:
Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Thomasin McKenzie, Frances Conroy, Keith Carradine, Adam Beach, Geneviève Lemon (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
Severe, pale-eyed, handsome, Phil Burbank is brutally beguiling. All of Phil’s romance, power and fragility is trapped in the past and in the land: he can castrate a bull calf with two swift slashes of his knife; he swims naked in the river, smearing his body with mud. He is a cowboy as raw as his hides. The year is 1925. The Burbank brothers are wealthy ranchers in Montana. At the Red Mill restaurant on their way to market, the brothers meet Rose, the widowed proprietress, and her impressionable son Peter. Phil behaves so cruelly he drives them both to tears, reveling in their hurt and rousing his fellow cowhands to laughter - all except his brother George, who comforts Rose then returns to marry her. As Phil swings between fury and cunning, his taunting of Rose takes an eerie form - he hovers at the edges of her vision, whistling a tune she can no longer play. His mockery of her son is more overt, amplified by the cheering of Phil’s cowhand disciples. Then Phil appears to take the boy under his wing. Is this latest gesture a softening that leaves Phil exposed, or a plot twisting further into menace? (Transmission Films)
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Reviews (10)
“What kind of man would I be if I did not help my mother? If I did not save her?” Jane Campion's latest film certainly can't be denied its visible ambition and its push for film awards. The Power of the Dog has a solid cast in its arsenal and an engaging theme that spans different genres and corners as the plot unfolds. In addition, it features some beautiful locations of plains somewhere in Montana. However, it is quite dragged down by the sometimes too gradual build up of the plot. Campion works skilfully with hints and dead ends in the plot, which is why I found the denouement surprising but not shocking. The way Campion builds tension and relationships between the characters left me feeling uneasy – the interactions of Phil and Peter or Phil and Rose intrigued me, while Phil and George and George and Rose passed me by. Last but not least, I have to criticize the soundtrack, which distracted me throughout the film rather than enhancing the atmosphere. Academically cool, yet cleverly hinted at and genre-defying, it's a contender for several Oscars.
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Burbank, played by Benedict Cumberbatch in a devilishly nasty yet hypnotically appealing performance, is a character that hasn't appeared in a film since perhaps 2007, when There Will Be Blood and the oil-soaked Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, burst into cinemas. The Power of the Dog is a fascinatingly odd film, where you suspect every minute that something terrible is going to happen, and it usually does. Those who want a classic western, or even a modern western, go elsewhere. Those who want a dense, ruthless, ugly and dusty showcase of madness should wait for the right mood and put on Power of the Dog.
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Kodi Smit-Mcphee is going to have a hard time from the LGBT community. The Power of the Dog is a really weird family drama set in Montana in 1925, where it seems a key scene is missing, but wait! That’s on purpose. The characters suddenly change their demeanor thanks to something that happens off-camera. Campion simply hints at it and leaves the viewer to do the thinking. So the picture plays through without any sort of catharsis. It all stands on the shoulders of an excellent Cumberbatch who makes the very most of playing the rancher, really enjoying it.
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Initial Impressions: Benedict Cumberbatch proves yet again why he's a stellar actor with an incredible voice, the cinematography was a standout in the film, and it seems time hasn't been too kind to Kirsten Dunst. As for the official plot summary, it caught me off guard; Phil Burbank didn't strike me as cruel. Sure, he had that ability to make your eyes water and your nose hairs curl upon first meeting, capable of being downright unpleasant, but "cruel" might only be seen that way by the generation of snowflakes who start crying over an untied shoelace. The main hiccup of the film? It felt like it was missing a plot. It was an honest two-hour yawn with sporadic moments of brightness. The pacing crawled along, the storyline felt uneventful, and even Benedict Cumberbatch couldn't salvage it; he needed a solid script to work with. / Lesson learned: Sorry, but Phil just wasn't a villain in my eyes.
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A film where the protagonists look at each other in different acting positions and almost all the time, where the music supports the overall tension and a kind of invisible suspense, with the camera taking rolling panoramas of Montana. A lot could happen, but in the end nothing really does. A poorly made film by a director who obviously wanted to replicate the fragility and poetry of Pian, but incorporating it into a gritty western doesn't work. I don’t get the Oscar, I believe it put to sleep more than one viewer. And it almost put me to sleep.
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