The Power of the Dog (2021) – 2/5

Not even a remotely powerful film

„The Power of the Dog“ is a co-production between no fewer than five English-speaking countries and one of those is America where the action is set and another is New Zealand where the writer and director is from. I am of course talking about Jane Campion. I have seen some films from her and from what I have seen so far, I would say that these slightly over two hours are maybe her worst career effort, which is of course pretty disappointing that she seems to be losing her touch already while still comfortable under the age of 70. This film here is originally based on a novel by a man named Thomas Savage, his only writing credit here on imdb. I have not read said novel, so I cannot compare film and book and see if the strengths and (more frequent) weaknesses lie in the base material already or if the project was lost in transition. The cast includes quite a few big names, most of all Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead. He scored an Oscar nomination and so did Dunst, Smit-McPhee and Plemons. I am only happy for Jesse Plemons. He deserves it and who would have thought that he ends up being the only one to kinda match Bryan Cranston’s career post Breaking Bad. No Aaron Paul. Nothing against him. As for Dunst, I am not mad about her nomination. Not really deserving, but still more deserving than Cumberbatch and way more deserving than Smit-McPhee. I must still say I am glad the support for this film is decreasing. Dunst was once the frontunner in her category if I remember correctly and now she has zero chance to win the Oscar. KSM was the frontrunner also for quite a while, but the momentum seems to have shifted towards Troy Kotsur. Benedict Cumberbatch also has a shot at winning, but it would be an upset and right now Will Smith is the favorite. Not a good choice either, probably worse than Cumberbatch even and that means quite something.

As for Cumberbatch, I usually struggle to see him as a tough guy actor. This is exactly what he is showing us here and physically it’s kinda working at times, but I was still not won over. Moments like when he tells his group of buddies to go away for a moment, so he can have a conversation with somebody, or like when he makes fun of another character at the table in the most masculine manner or when he sees a certain shape at the horizon and nobody else does and they are so in awe of him felt pretty cringeworthy I must say. I assume these parts were taken right out of the book, but the way they were depicted here did not win me over at all. A few more words on the Oscars: Jane Campion basically has the win safe now for Best Director. She sweeped all precursors. The direction was probably among the film’s better aspects, but that does not mean she was deserving, just that almost everything else was pretty poor. She is inferior to other female winners like Zhao and especially Bigelow. I’ll probably cheer in every category against this movie. This also includes score where the film has a good shot at winning and it is as of now between this one here and Dune. We’ll see how that goes. Go Hans Zimmer! But now back to this one here: I really, really struggled with the story and screenplay on many occasions. I think the first half of the film was still alright. There I felt that I could give it three stars out of five and a positive recommendation, but what happened in the second half was an utter travesty. Probably the great deal of screen time for Plemons in the first half helped me to appreciate this first hour, even if there were weaknesses too. I mean look at how the protagonist’s brother has basically to act like a slave almost and a servant to Dunst’s character for her to develop feelings for him. That was strange. All me2. Also how he fell in love with her because of her tears etc.

But the worst parts in the first half included KSM. Such a nothing performance. He has pretty unique (not to say distinct) looks really and this is exactly the kind of characters he always plays. He does almost nothing here except being there. He plays a young man, much younger than the actor, struggling with his identity and even if it is nowhere stated explicitly, we can be sure that he is a man who likes men. His tender soul gives him away when he creates little flowers for the guest tables. At the same time, he is a dedicated fella not scared of killing bunnies to get medical insight because he has the ambition to become a doctor. No problem for him also to kill a bunny in the second half. He also has great vision and sees immediately what Cumberbatch’s character is talking about, the mouth/head of a dog that the simple-minded people cannot see. But those two can. What a great connection they have. Actually, this was maybe the film’s biggest weakness. How they literally hate each other in the first half of the film and then boom absolutely out of nowhere Cumberbatch’s character starts to approach the young man, maybe because he is scared he could talk about what he saw. I will soon get to what I mean by that. Anyway, moments later the two are really close buddies, ride out together etc. It made absolutely no sense. This bond came completely out of nowhere and please don’t tell me it was because Cumberbatch’s character pushed the young man away initially. What I meant with what I just wrote were of course these magazines including many photos of naked muscular men. Okay. A bit stereotypical no? Before that, there were also no indicators that Cumberbatch’s character could be gay too unless you count his musical talent maybe that implies he is also a lover of the arts to some extent. Then we find out that the guy they buried early on, who was a close friend to Cumberbatch’s character was maybe also a lover or at least a potential love interest. The „more than a friend“ was more obviously embarrassing writing. Or the reference that Cumberbatch’s character was approximately KSM’s character’s age when he met his mentor. Gringo or Bronco or whatever his name was.

I also did not like the talk by Smit-McPhee’s character about ambitions and stars near the end. It all felt so cringeworthy. There was absolutely zero subtlety in here. The best (or worst) example then was the protagonist’s death at the very end. Now they were really going all in. I mean times were rough back then over 100 years ago, especially in terms of life in the prairie, but it felt as much for the sake of it as everything else. How abrupt it came and the anthrax theory did not make things any better, only because this virus was referenced earlier in the film already. There are bridges on several occasions, but they simply do not fit together. Not even remotely. So many times. Let me emphasize here that I am not a homophobe by any means. I love Milk and I think Brokeback Mountain is a truly great film and the parallels between this one here and the latter cannot be ignored, but everything Brokeback Mountain did right, this film here did wrong and it would be absolutely embarrassing if this one here manages to win Best Picture. It is the prime example of a film that shows us what is wrong with society. Just not the way it was meant to be. Political correctness pushed people into praising the film simply because there is focus on homosexual characters. While really in an equal world, it should not be about this at all. It should be about the individual quality of the screenplay and all other production values. Brokeback Mountain’s screenplay is really close to a masterpiece. This one here is the exact opposite. Another great example is the explanation of the title and its meaning at the very end and Smit-McPhee gives us these words in the most pretentious manner. Unreal how much this film went down quality-wise in the second half. Many quotes are so off they are almost impossible to stomach. Like so obviously written and unauthentic.

It’s not just the story and characters though. It is also the music for example. I mentioned this briefly before that I did not like it. A wise man once said that the best score is one you don’t recognize while watching. I am not sure if I fully agree, but I do believe that this soundtrack once again lacked subtlety on pretty much every occasion. It felt clumsy in its desperately loud attempts to increase the significance of specific scenes and moments. Almost nothing here was working. The cinematography was also rather disappointing given the promising location where this film is set. Here and there, we had an okay scene like the little dance between Plemons‘ and Dunst’s characters, but even those were on the edge with some of the lines there. In the second half, Plemons‘ character almost disappears and Dunst’s is nothing but an alcoholic and this was also rushed in for the sake of it. Look at the scene in which she cannot play the piano for her parents and her parents-in-law. The film throws alleged depth and in-depth struggles at us without properly elaborating, then simply moves on to the next issue. Cumberbatch always plays misfit characters, so no surprise he was cast here. How he acts when said parents show up, especially after a humiliating comment from his brother, was typical Oscar bait. I mean I don’t like Cumberbatch, don’t see much talent in him and feel he has a tendency to always give extremely similar performances, but here the character writing is so poor that I cannot even blame him. Or can only blame him for for accepting the role. I am not surprised at all though that Hollywood loves this film. Politics are above everything there now and if a film brings the right agenda, it’s almost irrelevant how high or low (in this case low) the overall quality is and it will still win tons of awards. Extremely disappointing. I think what I described earlier has really been a common problem with short films for a long time, i.e. That the inclusion of homosexuality/homophobia is already good enough for many to say it is an artistic achievement when reality is the opposite. Don’t watch.