I like to try to see movies from as many prominent directors as I can, and that doesn’t always mean directors known to folks who just like a good popcorn flick. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a popcorn flick, but if I want to be some kind of film buff, I need to fill in my knowledge gaps. Many times, this is for more arthouse fare, often directed by European directors whose names I vaguely know but feel I should look into at one point in time or another.
Writer/director Jane Campion is from New Zealand, but the rest of that description works. Her latest, The Power of the Dog, is now available on Netflix.
Brothers Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Burbank (Jesse Plemons) are wealthy cattlemen in 1925’s Montana. The film’s opening tells us all you really need to know about both of them. Phil is dressed for work and verbally abuses his brother almost from the get-go. George is taking a bath, and he doesn’t say much. The impression is simple: Phil is rough-and-tumble and a worker while George is more inclined towards something like civilization, a point that will come up over and over again during the course of the movie. During a cattle drive, the brothers meet Rose Gordon (Kirsten Dunst) and her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Rose runs an inn, and Peter waits tables. Phil immediately starts to verbally abuse the more effeminate Peter, making Rose cry. George, for his part, goes to sooth the hurt woman. The two start a romance and soon marry. Peter goes off to college while Phil begins accusing Rose of marrying George for his money. Rose is emotionally shaky as it is, and she soon takes to drinking.
That would be when Peter comes home for the summer, and his general attitude is to protect his mother. That’s what comes out of the voiceover narration at the very start of the film. Can he somehow accomplish this? And what happens when Phil seems to start taking a shine to the youth after all?
There’s a lot to like to the movie. Peter is a quiet man, but one where there are plenty of hints to his true nature. Rose’s decline gets worse as the movie goes on, and Phil knows just how to make her worse. George isn’t much of a character beyond the point that he cares for his wife. But then there’s Phil. Cumberbatch has a very subtle performance going on here, one where he isn’t inclined towards loud bombast, but all the same, he’s making small gestures to show just what a self-serving and possibly self-loathing man he is. Does he automatically see the worst in Rose because he sees himself that way too? Does he only trust work done with his own two hands? And why does he change his mind about Peter?
Still, this is a very quiet, and seemingly slow, movie. I am not sure I would advise anyone go into this without being really into more arthouse fare. It’s a feather in Netflix’s cap on the critical end of the spectrum, but not necessarily the sort that casual moviegoers are going to like. In many ways, it’s like The Irishman that way. It’s the sort of movie a service like Netflix tosses out to show how “serious” it is. I liked it, but I wouldn’t say I loved it. Besides, putting Tomasin McKenzie in this movie and limiting her to a handful of scenes as a young maid, well, that struck me as a wee bit wrong. Beyond that, it was fairly good, but not what I would call great.
Grade: B
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