The power of the dog, is a curious thing; make a one man weep, make another one sing. Or, so I’ve heard. Or maybe that’s ‘love’. Anyhow, here is Jane Campion’s new movie to straighten me out.
In 1925, we find brothers George Burbank (Jesse Plemons) and Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) residing on a ranch in America’s west. While George meets a pretty widow in Rose Gordon (Kirsten Dunst) and marries quickly, Phil is ‘dogged’ by anti-social impulses, complexly brought to life by Cumberbatch. Phil terrorises Rose and only answers to himself, until he finally finds an understanding with his newly extended family through Rose’s son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee).
Pfffft. I’m about to rag on a movie that has a 98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but please, hear me out to the end. It took me at least 15 minutes to find an in with The Power of the Dog. George and Phil are both brothers with a brittle tolerance of one and other, and it’s hard to know which one is more earnest, initially. Well then, it’s obviously George, as he tries his best to avoid Phil’s machoistic bullshit, which leads to he and Rose hitting it off while Phil sulks at home. Not really enjoying this movie, I wanted to explore how the title relates to the western setting and the story we are being told. I started to think that maybe Phil is a stand-in for an actual dog… and it actually made sense. Phil is territorial, protective of George without being reciprocated with the same approach. Phil doesn’t like Rose moving into his house, preferring to run off for mud baths in solitude – from a human point of view, he may or may not have point, being unadjusted to his brother’s marriage, considering the couple seem to be married within less than a week. Rose gives away Phil’s hides that he doesn’t use, akin to throwing out an old dog’s blanket, and Rose eventually brings her pup in Peter to the ranch where he and Phil butt heads before they go off on trails together. Thinking of Peter as a domesticated pooch, he even brings a rabbit into the house to show his mother before ripping it to shreds, lol. Phil also can’t come to the dinner table on the night the newlyweds are impressing people because he’s stinky. Obviously, or at least maturely, this interpretation of The Power of the Dog is silly, but the alternative is a thin plot taking itself so very seriously with a brooding score. Rose takes up drinking all day (hair of the dog), and is intimidated by everything very easily – maybe she shouldn’t have married and moved in so quickly, but we are hardly given any relevant history on Rose or George to be judgemental either way. George disappears for days on end while his brother does all the work, and for what, we don’t know, considering he burns profit in those hides.
I was never bored in The Power of the Dog, per se. I do think there is an attention to detail in Campion’s direction that is undeniable. I kept waiting for something to happen where it would all make sense; that is, the movie, as well as the external praise. This may be a good time to bring up experiences in the past where movies have come with a fervent ecstatic pressure and were underwhelming – I remember when The Shape of Water hit cinemas; I found the themes were fine, but I was left with a sense of ‘is-that-it?’ because I found the movie’s message hardly ground-breaking. With movies like Wonder, and even No Country for Old Men, I’ve struggled to comprehend them for their brilliance, but in recent years, I’ve come to realise that a big part of their impression on an audience, is if the audience is a parent or old, respectively (not that Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men isn’t amazingly portrayed for all ages). There are some heavily left-leaning reviewers at YouTube’s ‘Breakfast All Day’ that I frequent, because I respect their craft, and sometimes I disagree with them, feeling they have blinkers on to things that don’t fit a left-leaning narrative… and it’s just my turn to plead unenlightenment because I can’t see what’s so special about this movie. I have very little empathy to give to the characters of The Power of the Dog because I can’t relate to them, nor can I barely see the drama involved. Or maybe I can relate to them – I have my own family member who talks over everyone, never answers questions; put’s everyone on edge. When I get moody myself, I try not to exploit toxic traits afforded to me through masculinity. Maybe I’m too close to the well this movie is spelunking. But if we are meant to take away that the old ways are dying and masculinity should be put down, then I don’t agree with that as an absolute, and not every facade of the masculine is hiding a heart-broken gay man who misses his friend. It’s true, Phil can be truly frightening, and shamefully so, but I think anyone can hurt and intimidate, and it isn’t because he’s a man.
I don’t mind when a movie goes all-in, spending a two-hour runtime serving a pinpoint message, but unlike the deeply coded I’m Thinking of Ending Things where I found the whole thing riveting all the way through, this is pretty unexciting. So, at this stage, in my proper state of naivety, I almost prefer my shaggy dog story – Phil is a territorial dog, and Peter is a prissy pup, that ends up bonding with Phil on the farm before he’s taken to the ‘big farm in the sky’. For those that adore this movie, you will probably struggle to accept my dog interpretation, but we can at least agree that The Power of the Dog is a better movie than Harrison Ford and Buck’s sanitised adventure in The Call of the Wild, yes?
3.0
P.S. I just read the plot synopsis for The Power of the Dog on Wikipedia and I wonder why I didn’t see that movie; I like it better, and there’s hope that someday I’ll revisit this movie and understand what all the fuss is about. I also just saw that Paul Dano was originally cast in the George roll; it could mean nothing, but I can imagine Dano would have played it with an added awkwardness and repression, like he’d been beaten down by Phil prior to finding Rose. Plemons’ George is more tiredly matter of fact and cold about Phil’s domineering antics, and I didn’t feel I was shown how much George was consciously or subconsciously bothered by Phil, either way.
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