The setting is the rugged wilds of Montana (even though the movie was shot in New Zealand).
The characters are kitted out in chaps and cowboy hats.
Beyond these colorful props lies a dark, claustrophobic psychodrama. The tale unfolds as a classic, existentialist western in which life on the frontier drives its characters to the extremities of spiritual desolation.
The Power of the Dog is a slow-building tragedy driven by an evocative score by Jonny Greenwood.
Ambiguity
There’s a side to this story that defies any easy resolution.
A Big Sky Western like no other, it is an adaptation of the 1967 Thomas Savage novel of the same name. (Savage was a closeted or latent homosexual).
A transfixing Benedict Cumberbatch, in the most fully realized performance of his career, plays the rugged Montana cattle rancher Phil Burbank and Jesse Plemons as his gentlemanly brother George.
George upsets the loose the household’s equilibrium when he brings home his fragile wife Rose, played with aching delicacy by Kirsten Dunst.
Queer Revenge Thriller
Rose becomes the prey in Phil’s cruel games, but her sensitive beanpole son Peter, in a knockout performance from Kodi Smit-McPhee, defies expectations by shifting the power balance, turning the chamber drama into a startling queer revenge thriller.