The Power of the Dog [2021]
Imagine, if you will, a western with themes of abuse, inner turmoil, repressed identity, and displacement. Sounds pretty good; a little deeper than some cowboy shoot-em-ups of yore. Imagine again, however, that you place those themes against an often 2010-style CGI set and tell all of the actors to "really sell these roles" before vanishing behind the camera. The issue is that, after telling the actors that single note for their performances, they all look at you with dawning confusion and say,
"Hey, wait a minute. My character lacks more than a single dimension and their story doesn't go anywhere or matter and ultimately none of my actions mean anything because none of the other characters count either." If you've been able to stay with me, you’ve just watched the text version of The Power of the Dog.
This review will contain some spoilers as I feel that Dog could have been very good with some incredibly minor changes and exclusions... but don't worry, because nothing that happens in Dog would have surprised you anyway as, just like the plains it takes place on, the plot is about as flat as... well, plains.
Set in the Midwest during the cowboy year of 1925, The Power of the Dog attempts to tell the story of an abusive rancher and the internal struggles that he externalizes against his brother's wife, her son, and himself. I, as you may have gathered, am baffled by the praise this film is getting.
Cumberbatch is as swell in this as he is in anything else, Plemons plays the same character you've seen him play in Hostiles, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Judas and the Black Messiah, and everything else you've ever seen him in. Dunst plays one of the most confusing characters I've seen in a recent big-budget movie by developing a severe alcohol addiction after her son has a couple of mean things said to him and then being mocked for not being very good at the piano (which we'll come back to), and Smith-McPhee uh, plays a kind of quiet kid with a speech impediment that shows up occasionally.
The cinematography is nice to look at but, for every great shot of the Oscar-bait Midwest (New Zealand actually) we're treated to some really strangely animated backgrounds and overhead shots that feel out of place and dated. I get what they were trying to do -- shoot a movie that spans multiple seasons without actually shooting over multiple seasons -- but it looks real bad and is very distracting.
The strongest part of the film is the score. It's interesting, it's strange, and it's a character all its own. Similar to how stage performances and old-timey movies are scored, each character seems to have a theme or series of themes that cue the audience into how they are feeling regardless of what their actions are on screen. It's a really interesting way to score a modern film and creates a lot of tension when you know the "uh oh" music is playing before there's any reason to think about an "uh oh".
Now for big spoiler talk.
A major theme of this film is Cumberbatch's adoration and presumed sexual abuse at the hands of a one Buffalo Henry... Bronco Bill... whichever combination of those isn't the guy from Silence of the Lambs. It's a clear and prevalent idea from the start that he wants to be this figure, and the sexual tones are clear from early on with his bad attitude and repugnant behavior a clear cover for his closetedness. The problem with the way this is portrayed and the way the other characters respond to it (Dunst in particular) is that he just isn't that awful. In the beginning of the film he makes fun of her son twice, which upsets her. He doesn't really do anything that seems out of place for a prairie hardened rancher of the times. This isn't absolving him of poor behavior but, when the theme and timeframe are what they are... it feels like a really strange way to portray an "abusive villain"... Then, for reasons that are never really explained and also don't seem to matter, Cumber's brother makes a move and marries her, causing her to now live in their home. The potential for a clash is clear and interesting, the outcome is not.
Cumber is very straight forward with her upon meeting her again and says, "I'm not your brother. You're a cheap schemer." This is a totally fair assessment as their family comes from what seems to be very hard earned money and she does not. Additionally, so far as I remember, we have virtually no background on this character, so her inclusion into the family does feel very rash. He also doesn't say it in an overly aggressive way or even do anything confrontational, he simply goes back to reading his paper and ignoring her. He warned his brother about her earlier in the film and is making his feelings on the matter known now that she is here... It's actually one of the most logical actions in the entire thing.
Later, Dunst is practicing the piano after being harangued into it by her husband because he invited the governor over for dinner and wants to impress him. You can put the strangeness of this plot point aside because it doesn't go anywhere or mean anything. BUT, while practicing, Cumber stands upstairs and plays the same tune she is practicing on his banjo, but plays it with great alacrity and skill, it's a real jerk thing to do, but, again, it isn't horrid. Come time for the dinner party, she totally beefs it and can't play a single thing. The governor makes an offhanded politically-polite remark and Cumber makes fun of her for practicing so much but not being able to perform... Somehow, with only these interactions happening, Dunst develops a heavy drinking problem that becomes the central theme of her character and sets the rest of the film in motion. It's difficult to buy the extremity of her addiction without more interactions between them, but we'll come back to that. Mind you, as well, none of this happens until almost exactly an hour into the film.
Her son sees her spiral, Cumber mentions it and nobody seems to care, and her husband kind of disappears entirely from the film just long enough for you to go "hey where's that dude at?" and then he reappears... to do nothing.
Basically, yadda yadda yadda after discovering Cumber's secret hideout with his nudiemags, he tries to connive Peter (Dunst's son) away from her by teaching him the ways of the prairie. This seems like an obvious ploy to get the kid into a compromising position and threaten his life if he should ever tell Cumber's secret. Instead, they seem to be really getting on, we get some scenes of Peter cutting leather from a diseased cow, a drunken sprint to trade some hides with some native traders by Dunst against Cumber's wishes, and then a finale that every viewer sees coming from 40 miles away.
The problem here, is that there's no real closure and nothing actually means anything. The plot of the movie revolves around Cumber being a total jerk in general and then treating this woman like... mildly bad because he believes she's after his family's money. So her son creates a trap and gets him killed with a diseased rope. This is well and good, except that none of it matters and certain elements are simply too convenient to make the plot count.
This is an easy fix and I wish the director had taken a different direction to tell a more compelling and interesting "gotcha" story with the same elements.
We should lose virtually everything about Bronco Henry and his abuse of Cumber's character, it just doesn't matter for the story and nothing ever comes of it. Instead, all the time we spend on listening to Cumber prattle on and seeing the little shrine he makes for him should be spent on more scenes of Cumber tormenting Dunst, thus, actually justifying her addiction as a means of escape from him. As is, he works 90% of the day and then comes around and basically says "you're bad and I don't like you" every so often which sends her into a depressive spiral so bad that she can hardly function... and that nobody else seems to notice. So, if we got some more scenes of them actually interacting (even indirectly) and her trying to make someone see what was going on, her character would be much more believable and interesting. In addition, the film ends with her getting a handful of (what I assume to be anyway) valuable rings and essentially gaining access to the family's money... just like Cumber said she wanted. The problem with this, is that it isn't ever made clear if this was a plan of hers or if it just kind of... what happened.
Had we seen more of Cumber tormenting her and her slowly losing herself to addiction and then a couple very subtle scenes that maybe something else was going on, the ending scene could have been much more impactful for several reasons. We should have been shown a scene where someone notices something strange about her alcohol, but not something strange enough to say anything, and one time when "drunk" she makes a very sober catch or movement or something that clues us in that she isn't actually strung out. Then, in the end, after Peter gets Cumber killed and her husband goes to kiss her in the yard as Peter looks on from the second story window, she could turn and let him kiss her cheek instead of her mouth as she grins at Peter and he turns away from the window in satisfaction that their plan worked after all. It shows a shift in the power dynamic of the entire film and this way we get closure that Cumber's character was right the entire time. That she did just want their money, but because he's such a jerk... nobody bought it. So, he's a jerk and does deserve to get got, but they are also doing the wrong thing and taking advantage of the softer brother to get in on the family riches...
It's just an easy fix to make the film more interesting and all the characters deeper and more believable. As is, absolutely skip this one. A total waste of time.
