What can I say? I'd be his Cumberbitch.
In all seriousness, Benedict Cumberbatch growls and struts his way through Jane Campion's extraordinary The Power of the Dog, an artier and darker Western to be released this Thanksgiving weekend on Netflix for which I truly do give thanks.
Based upon Thomas Savage's equally gripping novel, The Power of the Dog is the best of Cumberbatch in a year that has seen Cumberbatch masterfully portray everything from your classic superhero in the MCU to an eccentric and psychologically wounded painter of cats to this repressed and brutal damn near caricature of a manly man that may very well be the Oscar-nominated actor's best performance to date.
Film journalists seem loathe to acknowledge Cumberbatch, who is an actor's actor and who simply and consistently immerses himself in nearly every project he undertakes while challenging himself along the way to try just about anything and everything.
One wouldn't expect the British actor, often associated with more intellectual fare, to so easily transform into Phil, a passionately brutal Montana rancher who tends to the family farm alongside his brother George (Jesse Plemons), a near polar opposite of Phil which basically means he's something resembling human.
The film is set in 1925. Because this is a Jane Campion film, we know that this will look and feel like 1925 and it will look and feel like Montana. The casting of Cumberbatch is simply a master stroke, a casting against type for which Cumberbatch is sublimely cast. Phil and George grew up on this ranch and you can feel it in their bones. They still share their childhood bedroom, though it's a bit of a marvel they fit together at all as Phil is extraordinarily intelligent but brutal and mean-spirited to his DNA while George is kinder and gentler and less classically rugged.
Phil calls him "fatso" in a way that projects both familiarity and dominance.
The arrangement works. The arrangement works until the presence of Rose (Kirsten Dunst) arrives on the scene as a widowed boardinghouse keeper whose aura enchants George and the two begin something of a romance for which Phil has no understanding or comprehension. The two marry and Rose joins George and Phil on their ranch along with Rose's son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a doctor-to-be who's comfort with his softness agitates Phil to no end resulting in near constant humiliation for Rose and Peter.
You can feel where The Power of the Dog is going, though not entirely. Campion is far too smart for that and The Power of the Dog only drops hints rather than actual plot threads. At times, the story feels frustratingly incompletely but that's exactly how it should feel because it puts us inside Cumberbatch's Phil. It would be hard to overstate just how masterfully Cumberbatch portrays Phil, from the memories of Bronco Henry, a childhood mentor from the past, to a bathing scene that serves up self-reflection like a broken shard of stained glass.
Getting its name from the psalms, and I knew that seminary education would pay off one of these days, The Power of the Dog is more than you think and not nearly as simple as some are projecting. There's a universality here, an immense sadness that rises to the surface thanks to Cumberbatch's intuitive, insightful performance. Phil is not just brutal. Phil is not just repressed. There's something more and if you've ever felt it you'll see it. Phil knows the truth. His is a life for which there will be no reward, a meaningless existence surrounded by constant reminders of just how trapped he is. Phil isn't repressed ... he's trapped inside himself and inside this world where he lives.
There's really no escape.
Appropriately, Cumberbatch dominates here not just physically but emotionally. This is Cumberbatch's universe and we're reluctantly invited into it. It seems unfathomable that Cumberbatch won't walk away with his second Oscar nomination here and he deserves to be a frontrunner. Kirsten Dunst continues her long history of making one-note roles far more complex than they ought to be. Savage's rose was something special, however, Dunst turns her into something absolutely exceptional. Jesse Plemons also continues his long history of being just about the best cinematic sidekick in the world, here a pales in comparison sibling who practically drowns in the muddy river of melancholy and masculinity that is Phil. Kodi Smit-McPhee, as well, takes what could have easily been a caricature and brings Peter vividly to life.
Jonny Greenwood's original score is as unpredictable and unstable as the story itself, a desolate sounding immersive experience that overwhelms yet simultaneously feels hollow and piercing. Ari Wegner's lensing captures the vastness and the emptiness. The production design by Grant Majors holds up to the very best of Jane Campion. While The Power of the Dog never quite achieves the greatness of The Piano, few films ever have. It's a masterwork all it's own and it's another reminder that Campion remains one of this generation's finest filmmakers.
Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic
