SCREEN SHOT - The Power of the Dog - the brief film review

Phil and George run a family ranch. Phil refers to George as 'fatso' constantly, this is not a brotherly affectionate nickname. It is meant to belittle. Something about this filial relationship feels distinctly unhealthy. Sharing a bedroom, and often a bed. George, needs to distance himself in order to escape his brother's sphere of unpleasantness and influence. He starts secretly courting Rose a widow who runs a hotel, with the help of her son Peter. Without telling Phil, George marries her. She closes her business and moves to live on the isolated ranch. Rose immediately is made to feel unwelcome, intimidated and out of her depth - by Phil.

Yet there is a mystery at the heart of Phil, of who he really is. How did someone, once a highly talented academic student, top of his generation, end up as a filthy unwashed cowboy? Why does he still idolise Bronco Henry, a long dead cowboy who was his mentor as a teenager? His nasty bullying character has, so it seems, some much darker and deep seated origins than is immediately apparent. Then, to Rose's abject horror, Phil starts actively befriending her strange willowy son Peter.

Jane Campion's films frequently portray a central male character like Phil, one who is flawed, an unhinged monstrous bully. Yet Campion maintains a degree of compassionate understanding for how they've become who they are. No one is ever too starkly black and white. It's one of many unique qualities present in her filmmaking. As is the visual sensitivity towards the expansive drama of landscape itself, in wide screen backdrop or composed through windows and doors, human figures are lost and dwarfed in its vastness. She is the supreme cinematic poet of both personal and terrestrial horizons and story lines. 

Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee all give their finest most delicately nuanced performances. Each showing you much more than their dialogue alone informs you of. The film soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood, isn't just central to the overall mood of this film, it performs the role of an oracle or soothsayer. Filled with raw, edgy wariness and a palpable tone of fear filled foreboding. The Power of the Dog is simply stunning on every level you might look or encounter it on.

CARROT REVIEW - 8/8