The Power of the Dog is a love story. That’s probably not how most people would describe the film, but love is the driving force of the four main characters. However, as Shakespeare showed us in Othello, love can be a powerful and dangerous motivation.
There are many kinds of love. There is the protecting love of a child for parent and parent for child. Then there is the consuming love of passion, which can engender hatred, jealousy, and rage. Each of these loves is present in *The Power of the Dog*. Love binds the characters together so that they are ensnared in a tragic web.The movie raises the question, “What will one do for love?” The Power of the Dog is, in a sense, a response to that question. The main characters are two brothers, a widow and the widow’s son.
The brothers are Phil and George--Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons. The widow and her son are Rose and Peter--Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee. These four characters carry the plot, although Cumberbatch brings the greatest energy.
The relationship between the brothers, Phil and George, is odd. They are nigh on middle-aged, but they sleep in twin beds, in the same bedroom. Phil is aggressive and cruel. He clings to George, and yet abuses him. George is almost unreadable in his passivity.Phil is constantly saying, “Wait for George.” He won’t start anything without George. He is emotionally dependent on his brother, and yet he calls George ‘Fatso’. Phil would like to bully his brother, but George seems impassive and unmoved by whatever Phil does.
The two men are rich ranchers in Montana. Very early in the film we follow them on a cattle drive. They arrive at a town and stop with their ranch hands at a restaurant for dinner. This is where we meet the widow, Rose. She is the cook who serves dinner. Her son, Peter, helps.
Peter is a slim, ethereal figure. As he walks gracefully around the dining room Phil berates him, calls him a Nancy. Phil is loud, brutal and crude. All the while George sits at the head of the table, watching, saying nothing. When the dinner is over, Phil leaves with the other men and George stays behind to settle the bill.
He hears Rose crying in the kitchen. He goes in to comfort her, and to apologize for Phil’s behavior. He puts his hand on her shoulder, which seems like a bold move for him. He takes to visiting Rose and soon the two are married. He tells Phil nothing about this ceremony until a week after the wedding.
Phil is stunned, furious. To him Rose is a schemer, a usurper. She literally takes his place. She now shares the bedroom with George. Phil listens to their night noises. He hears Rose brushing her teeth. He hears husband and wife as they make love in their marital bed.
Phil is determined to crush Rose. We learn that he is brilliant, where George is not. Phil graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale. George could not make it through college. Phil has the wit and the will to destroy the marriage. However, Rose has an underestimated ally: Peter, her son.
At the very beginning of the marriage Peter is in medical school. When he comes home for the summer he notes what has transpired. His mother drinks in the daytime. She barely gets out of bed. Phil has shredded her self esteem.
Peter seems innocent, naive, soft. This is how Phil sees him. But there is more to Peter than that. This is the boy who had to cut his father down from a rope—a suicide. His father was an alcoholic. Drank, as Peter explains to Phil, up to the end.
Peter tells Phil that his father gave him advice before he died: Life is about obstacles, removing obstacles. This becomes a prophetic statement.
Almost like characters in a Greek drama, Phil, George, Rose and Peter are set in their roles at this point in the film. They move toward what seems to be an inevitable conclusion. The four of them are tied together in a dynamic of conflicting loves.
George loves Rose. Phil, in his own distorted way, loves George. Peter loves his mother. There is a final element, a secret love that seals the fate for all of them. We learn about this love as the film progresses.
As someone who appreciates good writing I have to say I love this script. It is lean, and organized. There is a principle in story writing known as ‘Chekhov’s gun’. Promulgated by the Russian author, Anton Checkov, the principle is this: if an author introduces an element early in a story—say, a gun--that element, the gun, has to appear meaningfully later in the story.
There is a moment, in one of the movie’s first scenes, in which the camera focuses on a coiled rope. It’s a passing instant, easy to miss. But the rope, especially a coiled rope, becomes a motif throughout the film and most importantly at the end of the film.
This movie is really, really good. The writing, the acting—all topnotch. I won’t say watching the movie is a pleasant experience. Phil’s bullying, especially of Rose, is upsetting. She crumbles under the abuse. As discomfiting as parts of the film may be to the viewer, though, the movie is riveting, and certainly unforgettable.
Some interesting data points:
Plemons and Dunst are married in real life. This made their scenes together more interesting for me to watch.
The move is set in Montana, but was shot in New Zealand.
Joan Campion was writer and director. She lives in New Zealand.
The title of the film is a quote from Psalm 22. Jesus is said to have spoken these words from the cross as he implored the Lord to help him:
Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs.
Release date of the movie as 2021. Run time is 2 hours and 8 minutes. I watched it on Netflix.
Thank you for reading my blog. Peace and health to all. Hive on!
Rating: 99/100
