'Power Of The Dog': Jane Campion Crafts Cinematic Poetry In Her Triumphant Big-Screen Return With Benedict Cumberbatch [Venice Review]

The ghost of a legendary cowboy named Bronco Henry haunts “The Power of the Dog,” an evocative, sensory psychodrama set in the American West of the 1920s. While Bronco is long gone and never seen on the screen, his spirit is felt everywhere in this soulful exploration of masculinity and repressed love, one that is equal parts untamed and delicate and wholly gorgeous.

All that to say, let’s hope Jane Campion doesn’t deny us her graceful cinema for this long a stretch again. Marking the writer-director’s return to feature filmmaking after 2009’s passionate drama “Bright Star,” her latest is a Western of transfixing elegance. It centers on a tough-as-nails rancher who declares his immense indebtment to Bronco Henry as soon as we lay our eyes on him. After all, this bright and leanly muscular man has learned everything he knows about being a sturdy farmer from Bronco—roping, horseback riding, braiding raw hides, you name it. At first, we detect a deep sense of respect for his master, though not much else. But rest assured that Campion’s low-key epic will pull the curtain on this raw, expansive, and increasingly tragic story of alienation and self-preservation in due course while embracing the filmmaker’s signature patience on the page.

In that regard, “The Power of the Dog” thoroughly feels like a movie only Campion could have made with all the gradual swelling of its pathos. And while this thoughtful adaptation of Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel yields the first male-led picture of Campion’s filmography, it shares a kindred spirit with much of her former work, including her melancholic romance “The Piano.” Like that lyrical masterpiece (which dances around notes far more uplifting and optimistic), “The Power of the Dog” sinks its teeth deep into every pressure-cooker moment of emotional restraint, earning your gushes and silent shrieks along the way.

Those shrieks are matched—and sometimes, deviously guided—by Jonny Greenwood’s string-and-horn-heavy, shrewdly sneaky atonal score as we follow Phil Burbank, the stony-faced man’s man in question. Benedict Cumberbatch plays him with heart-shattering command, precision, and for quite some time, a sense of terrorizing intimidation—a volatile combination that routinely feels on the verge of exploding. Phil is your bona fide cowboy—a hardnosed cattle rancher with brains and brawn, someone who can skin and castrate a cow with such nonchalant ease that you will need a moment or two to catch up with the ferocity you’ve just witnessed on the other side of his unyielding casualness. Cinematographer Ari Wegner captures the details of Phil’s backbreaking routine lavishly here. A DP who’s been consistently leaving a magnetic impression in the recent years, lensing fuming rhythms, fiery vistas, and vibrant contemporary environs across the likes of “Lady Macbeth,” “True History of the Kelly Gang,” and “Zola,” Wegner seamlessly complements Campion’s touch, advancing the film’s womanly gaze on deceptively masculine themes.

What surfaces quickly is Phil’s cruel, bully-ish edge, the side of him he is almost too pleased to flaunt. We learn as much early on when he and his contrastingly temperate and well-mannered brother George Burbank (Jesse Plemons, unassumingly enthralling with his soothing gentleness) stop by the widowed Rose’s restaurant with their convoy. Savvy, caring, and calmly composed, Rose (Kirsten Dunst, expertly hovering between a resilient and vulnerable emotional state) puts her helpful son Peter to work to serve the clan. A boyishly beautiful, mild-tempered teenager, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee, delivering another star-making performance after “Slow West”) happens to be the creative kind who makes art and assembles paper flowers for her mom’s tables—qualities deemed unfavorably effeminate by Phil, who spews one homophobic insult after the other to the boy’s way. By the end of their meal, Phil acts so rude and ruthless towards Rose and Peter that he makes the young woman cry. Bonding with her after the chaos, the gentlemanly George ends up marrying Rose, bringing the mother and son to the Burbanks’ wealthy Montana ranch.

This is where Phil’s toxic mind games begin, aggressive acts designed to break Rose and Peter down. Campion orchestrates a virtuosic maze in this second act, pitting Phil—an unexpectedly sophisticated person for someone who appears so unpolished—against every member of the house both metaphorically and physically. Breathing down Rose’s neck every chance he gets, especially when the reluctant newlywed tries her hand on the piano, Phil calculatingly daunts Rose with stares and whistles, slowly driving her to shame, seclusion, and heavy drinking. Through dinner parties and kitchen banters alike—scenes that feature a memorable array of supporting cast members like Keith Carradine, Frances Conroy, and Thomasin McKenzie—Campion and Wegner carefully compose each shot with studious layers of contesting ideas on the foreground and background. The duo often emphasizes the growingly discomforting play amongst Phil, Rose, George, and Peter through suggestive uses of light and shadows seeping through open doors and windows. What offsets those intimate moments of brilliantly costumed and art-directed tension is the glorious outdoors—sun-kissed tableaus of livestock, breezy vistas of fluttering weeds, and at times, stripped bodies lazing by the water; all of which Wegner’s camera sensually caresses.

The inherent tautness of “The Power of the Dog” only escalates when Phil’s inner world—the details of which are better discovered cold and not disclosed—cracks wide open during a central scene of crushing bareness. With a sudden change of heart, Phil decides to take Peter under his protective wing right around then, toughening him up and educating him around the ranch. While Peter “mans up” and the vulnerable, concerned Rose continues to go down the deep end, the level of suggestive intensity Greenwood’s score infuses this newfound dynamic with can’t be overstated. Is Phil scheming something sinister? Or does he have hidden sides to him numbed by society? For the longest time, Campion attentively trickles in clues, leaving them up to the viewer to decipher as the duo builds a unique bond in private, safely shielded behind the guise of traditional masculinity. One witness to their connection is the storied figure of a dog vaguely etched on the side of a mountain, something Peter can see to Phil’s surprise. Until then, he had been among the only ones who could spot the animal, the presence of which Campion watchfully mines for all its hidden metaphors.

One wishes something more active from Rose in the last act, as she sinks further and further into obscurity—this is perhaps the only area where Campion’s film slightly falters in its sense of direction. Still, “The Power of the Dog” soars everywhere else despite being a movie that favors small yet jittery moments that seldom detonate over big and loud ones. It’s cinematic poetry, if there ever was one, bourgeoning in meaning the more you linger in its shadow. [A-]

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