The Power of the Dog reviewed by Mark Kermode

power of the dog oh yes new film by jane campion adapted from a novel by thomas savage plays out in 1920s montana although filmed in new zealand um chalk and cheese rancher brothers phil and george played by benedict cumberbatch and jesse playmonds um find themselves at odds over the subject of rose played by kirsten dunst who is a hard-working uh widow with a very sensitive son peter played by cody smith mcphee um very early on in the film she wins the affections of george who marries her to the utter dismay of his brother who does everything he can to disparage both the mother and indeed the son he's a kind of he covers his body in mud and he smells and he refuses to go and he and he he says you know what on earth are you doing this is a terrible thing he's like a really really aggressively um against this the question is where does all this disdain come from is it simply because he thinks that his brother is marrying somebody who's out for his money or is it because he just feels disdainful of anybody who doesn't live up to the kind of the macho mentorship of bronco henry who was his kind of great hero and mentor has he have his own affections been touched in ways that that he would rather not face the film is not plot heavy although what's interesting is i was um i was talking to jamie who works on the show about the end of the of the film and i said what exactly do you think happens does does this thing happen or do you think this thing happens and jamie said well i think this thing happens but actually i wasn't sure and then we both looked on a synopsis thing that said oh this thing didn't but what was the thing no i'm not gonna tell you but what sort of thing there's there's an air of mystery about it that evoked for me the beguiled and i won't say any more than that it's very very uh beautifully shot at barry really beautifully is it raining no it's not welcome to new zealand where it's raining no it's montana anyway but you know um and it has a really active score by johnny greenwood now i think johnny greenwood is just such an interesting song at the moment he's he's on everything um i think the first radio head in movies thing was end credits from for a movie you know from romeo and juliet um and johnny greenwood has then gone on to you know work with paul thomas anderson i mean did that brilliant score for phantom thread he of course did there will be blood which he should have been oscar nominated but famously wasn't because a part of the portion of the the score had been created for something and basically what happened was they all ganged up to get him out because they thought he might win and they didn't want that to happen but the score for um power of the dog is very very active i mean it's there very much in your face doing the kind of you know working your way through the landscape and i think that's interesting because the film itself has a kind of this sort of moody inertia which is that it's not to do with you know unraveled plot points although there is there is a story and a story which almost creeps up on you so slowly that you almost don't notice it happening but the music is doing a lot of that it's a real i think departure for bendick cumberbatch you i think that he he really immerses himself uh in this role and i think plays it really well there is one sequence which weirdly evokes deliverance you know the dueling banjos from deliverance well this is banjo and piano and i've never seen banjo and piano put together in such a sinister way and as i say that if you know if you remember deliverance and you remember the dueling banjo sequence from deliverance that's like the last moment that everything seems to be okay before everything is not okay um dance i think is great um as a woman who's been silenced by her own terror by her own by alcoholism by the fear that is instilled in her body it's you know it's a peggy pardon it's a character piece and it's a movies but there is there is a narrative going on underneath and what i thought was really fascinating was as i said i had this conversation with jamie but what what exactly do you think happened at the end and i always admire a film that you watch and you enjoy and you feel but then afterwards you have the conversation about do you do you think what happened was the same thing that i think happened i'm sure everybody else watched the film went is this perfectly obvious what happened but i thought it had a nice layer of ambiguity to it which i which i appreciated it's in cinemas now and on netflix from december the 1st

Channel: kermodeandmayo

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Id: DqMnTkpfpBk

Length: 4min 42sec (282 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 19 2021