Power of the Dog: Well crafted visually but narratively creepy

Movie Review: Power of the Dog (2021) on Netflix

Power of the Dog is a well crafted film visually, but you never really know where the narrative is headed, you are just certain that things can't be what they seem. Phil is too uptight, without an apparent reason. His brother George is too nice about it, without a recourse. And the story proceeds with a kind of seediness to it around Phil's unkemptness and roughshodiness. 

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Phil, a manipulative cowboy picking on those weaker than himself. Only when his personal secret is endangered does he begin to show mercy, but it's too late. Someone is plotting to take him down, only no one including he and we as viewers don't see it till the end. Then we see the meaning of the title, too. I kept wondering where this story was going, and that was a weakness--it was kind of creepy.

George, played by Jesse Plemons, comes off not so much as Phil's opposite as much as the squishy soft remnant of Phil's obsessions. He has an interest in Rose (played by Kirsten Dunst), whom he marries, and brings her to the inner sanctum the brothers' loneliness. And here a battle of wills ensues between Phil and Rose for survival. Rose sends her son Peter (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee) off to college, where he studies animal life and during his summer break comes to stay at the brothers' cattle ranch, there to defend his mother. 

There is a primitiveness to this film. It's probably more authentic to the life it depicts, but in its rawness it strips away any humanity and supplants it with bare naked bitterness. Any touches of decency get swallowed up and spit out. This gives Power of the Dog an edginess that begs for resolution that comes only at the end, and then without an emotional resolution. For all these reasons, I can't really rate this film more than a B for bewildering.