Oscar Countdown: “The Power of the Dog” looks great, but is a great bore
The film, written and directed by Jane Campion, is stunning and well-acted, but it lacks anything resembling action
Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” stars Benedict Cumberbath and Kodi-Smit McPhee, both of whom are nominated for Academy Awards for their performances.
Over the next month, the Pepper Bough staff is celebrating the 94th Academy Awards by reviewing each of this year’s crop of Best Picture nominees. We will be looking at two movies per week, plus a few other notable nominees, leading up to Oscar night on Sunday, March 27.
“The Power of the Dog,” which was released to Netflix on December 1 after a short theatrical run, recently received 12 Academy Awards nominations at the 96th annual Oscars. This included some of the event’s biggest awards, like Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, and Best Picture.
A lot of people have opinions about this film, but last I checked there weren’t a lot of teenagers writing about “The Power of the Dog.”
The movie’s plot just wasn’t for me. Don’t get me wrong, the acting was great, but that wasn’t enough to make the movie interesting or make me excited to keep watching. After the first 30 minutes, I wanted to watch another movie, but I couldn’t judge a book by its cover.
“Dog” started off with a calm, slow pace, which is not what I was expecting from a movie whose title had me thinking it would be about something having to do with a dog. I was definitely expecting something more action-packed from a Western film set in rural Montana in the 1920s.
At first there was no drama. Just two brothers, Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Burbank (Jesse Plemons). In 1925, the two brothers go on a cattle drive where George instantly becomes attracted to Rose Gordon (Kirsten Dunst), who owns an inn where the men stop at during their drive. George and Rose get married and she moves into the Burbank ranch and then starts using George’s money to send her son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), to medical school. Peter begins to make assumptions and thinks that Rose only married George for the money.
By the time that Peter comes back to the ranch during the summer, he sees that his mom has become an alcoholic. Phil, who’s resentful of his brother for marrying Rose and becoming a stepfather to her son, starts humiliating Peter along with the cattle crew. Rose’s drinking problem gets worse and worse and more problems keep appearing. It’s really depressing stuff.
The movie’s sets show how it was back in the day where there was less of the modern technology we use. It seemed like there was nothing back then, just pure landscapes packed with horses and other animals. It is pretty interesting to get an image of how life was back in the early 1900s, but it seems like it would have been boring to live back then.
Those landscapes were great, but the movie would’ve been better if it had more action. The setting reminded me of the movie “Cry Macho” that was released on HBO Max last year starring Clint Eastwood, but that movie was set in 1970.
The director, Jane Campion, did a good job putting the movie together, and getting great performances out of her actors, but her writing just wasn’t clear enough for a teenager to understand a movie set about 100 years ago.
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