Film Pick of the Week: The Power of the Dog - review by Yvette Huddleston

Based on the 1967 novel by Thomas Savage, it is Campion’s first movie in ten years and it is well worth the wait. Cumberbatch plays very much against type as uncouth rancher Phil Burbank who runs a lucrative cattle ranch with his younger brother George (Jesse Plemons). The two siblings couldn’t be more different – Phil is rough-edged and charismatic, a natural leader who the ranch-hands all look up to, while George is quiet, refined, lacking in confidence. While Phil is a bully, openly ridiculing his brother in front of their employees, George is considerate and kind.

After a long cattle drive, the brothers and their men stop off in town to eat at a café run by widow Rose (Kirsten Dunst) with the help of her sensitive teenage son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who waits on the guests and creates beautiful paper flowers for the table decorations. Phil sneers at these delicate creations and humiliates the boy, leading the braying laughter from the gang. Peter is hurt by this, so is his mother and when George goes back to the café later to pay the bill and finds Rose crying, he gently comforts her. It is the beginning of a tentative relationship.

When they marry, Rose moves to the ranch, much to Phil’s annoyance and he sets about making his new sister-in-law feel unwelcome, branding her a schemer only interested in George’s money and is scathing about her lowly beginnings as a cinema piano player. There is an excruciating scene in which George hosts a dinner party for his wealthy parents and their political allies at which Rose is invited to play and she freezes, to Phil’s obvious delight. Soon Rose is descending into alcoholism and despair.

Throughout, there is a sense that Phil is hiding something – his frequent, admiring references to a long dead rancher called ‘Bronco’ Henry who was a mentor to him, and it is suggested perhaps more, when he was a teenager. Then Peter, now at medical school, comes to visit for the long vacation; Phil is unsettled by his presence and things begin to unravel… Campion is such a masterful cinematic storyteller and she elicits stand-out performances not only from Cumberbatch but also Dunst and the ethereal Smit-McPhee. Atmospheric, beautifully shot and totally compelling.