The Power of the Dog

I liked it a lot, although I admit it is not easy to enter. At first it seems slow, even too quiet, but little by little you realize it is doing something else: it is creating unease without needing big scenes. It is not a western of gunfights or duels, but a rather uncomfortable story about people who live repressing too many things. The best part is in the small details: a look, a poisonous sentence, a humiliation almost in passing. That is where the film starts doing damage.

What interested me most is how it dismantles the classic image of the tough cowboy. Phil presents himself as the ultimate virile man: dirty, dry, dominant, cruel, proud of his contact with the land and the cattle, contemptuous of any gesture of delicacy. But the film gradually lets us see that such aggressive masculinity is not strength, but armor. Behind so much hardness there is fear, repressed desire, loneliness and a sick need to maintain control.

Benedict Cumberbatch is magnificent. At first it may seem strange to see him in such a physical and rough register, but he soon imposes an uncomfortable presence. His Phil does not need to raise his voice much to poison a room. A look, a sentence, a mockery or a lack of kindness is enough. He is an unpleasant character, yes, but not a flat one. The film does not soften or justify him, but it does let us understand where part of his poison comes from.

Kirsten Dunst also seemed very good to me. Rose enters that world as someone who could bring some calm, affection and domestic life, but she gradually fades under the pressure of a hostility that almost never needs to be explicit. The film shows very well how constant cruelty can destroy a person without the need for great melodramatic scenes. There is something terrible in watching her shrink inside a huge house, surrounded by space but without air.

And then there is Kodi Smit-McPhee, who for me is essential. Peter seems fragile, strange, vulnerable, almost an easy victim inside a world that despises everything that does not fit masculine roughness. But the film plays very well with that perception. Just observe how he looks, how he learns, how he calculates and how he moves through hostile territory. His presence changes the balance of power in a very subtle way.

Jane Campion's staging seems extraordinary to me. There is a cold, huge, almost intimidating beauty in those open landscapes which, instead of freeing the characters, seem to trap them even more. The ranch, the mountains, the interiors, the dust, the bodies and the silences build an atmosphere of contained threat. Everything feels dry, beautiful and dangerous. It is a western, yes, but seen from a much more intimate and psychological place.

It is true that this is not a film for everyone. Its slow pace may frustrate anyone looking for a more direct narrative. For much of the running time it may seem that not much is happening, but in reality a great deal is happening beneath the surface. The film asks for patience and attention, because its force is not in the immediate blow, but in accumulation. And when you look back, you better understand the precision with which it has placed every gesture.

Its reading of toxic masculinity seems very powerful to me, but also of hidden desire and the damage caused by living while performing a role. Phil does not only hurt others; he also seems trapped in the figure he has built in order to survive. That mixture of violence, repression, admiration for a mythologized past and fear of being discovered gives him a tragic dimension. It does not redeem him, but it makes him much more interesting.

The film also speaks very well about power. Not grandiloquent power, but the everyday power of someone who dominates a house, imposes a climate, decides who can breathe and who cannot. Phil turns the ranch into an extension of his character. Rose, George and Peter move inside that space as if every step had consequences. That constant tension is what turns the story into something almost suffocating.

In the end, it remains for me a very good film, elegant, uncomfortable and with a bite that takes time to be felt. It is not perfect for every taste, nor does it try to be, but it has enormous performances, a hypnotic atmosphere and a narrative intelligence that reveals itself little by little. I liked it because it does not underline too much, because it understands that poison can be in the smallest gesture, and because it turns the western into a dark story about desire, fear, cruelty and survival.