The Power of the Dog

The Power of the Dog plays out a very interesting and engaging psychological game with the central characters in the first half. You are waiting and wishing for their frustrations to quietly simmer away and eventually explode violently. However, that is not going to happen; the second half pretty much pushes it all into a corner in such a predictable and unexciting way that you almost feel sorry for the promising beginning. In any case, Benedict Cumberbatch has convinced me that he is a great actor - if there is one reason to watch this movie, it is his performance. Plus, the movie has a very impressive score. (26/12/2021)

In this slow chamber drama in a cold autumnal setting, feelings are hardly spoken of and only simmer between the characters, supported by dramatic music that in places is reminiscent of that used in a thriller. Jane Campion again sits down at the piano and this time avoids all of the narrative clichés that occur to the viewer while watching. And with a careful psychological study of the characters, she transforms the film into a work of art that poses more questions than it answers. The Power of the Dog is interesting and distinctive, with the nature of a festival film. But it left me cold. Cumberbatch is brilliant. (09/12/2021)

Humble, beautifully filmed, full of dramatic scenery and subliminal tension, which is, however, quite forcefully injected by Johnny Greenwood's sometimes shallow underscore. Campion's script is unfocused and the plot, divided into fragments, doesn't create coherent dramatic tension, and in the end it kind of depends on the power of chance, and I therefore struggled with the point rather than lived it. The strongest motif is not the son's love for his mother or the misalignment of the two reclusive characters, but rather the relationship between the two brothers, which quietly fades from the plot after about half an hour, much like Jesse Plemons outplaying the rest of the cast. The result is a diet broth of There Will Be Blood and In Fabric. An elegant piece that barks but doesn't bite. (08/12/2021)

Kodi Smit-Mcphee is going to have a hard time from the LGBT community. The Power of the Dog is a really weird family drama set in Montana in 1925, where it seems a key scene is missing, but wait! That’s on purpose. The characters suddenly change their demeanor thanks to something that happens off-camera. Campion simply hints at it and leaves the viewer to do the thinking. So the picture plays through without any sort of catharsis. It all stands on the shoulders of an excellent Cumberbatch who makes the very most of playing the rancher, really enjoying it. (29/10/2021)

A film where the protagonists look at each other in different acting positions and almost all the time, where the music supports the overall tension and a kind of invisible suspense, with the camera taking rolling panoramas of Montana. A lot could happen, but in the end nothing really does. A poorly made film by a director who obviously wanted to replicate the fragility and poetry of Pian, but incorporating it into a gritty western doesn't work. I don’t get the Oscar, I believe it put to sleep more than one viewer. And it almost put me to sleep. (19/04/2022)