

The film does have significant character development and there's lots to read between the lines, since the film tells its story in a very subtle manner. This causes Phil to constantly mock him in front of his workers. Her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is gay - or a faggot, as they call him in the movie. George falls in love and eventually marries Rose (Kirsten Dunst). Phil is insensitive, rude and crude (lets just call him butch!), while George is quite the opposite. So let's look at this film.īenedict Cumberbatch stars as a rancher, Phil, who runs a ranch together with his brother, George (Jesse Plemons). The film received an incredible 12 Oscar award nominations. I generally don't favour drama films, and the only reason I decided to watch 'The Power of the Dog' is because it received an amazing 562 award nominations (winning 250 so far), and because I like Benedict Cumberbatch as an actor. Or should I say, the film is very open to the suggestion of homosexuality, but it never really surfaces - almost like a 70's movie. It is said 'The Power of the Dog' covers themes such as love, grief, resentment, jealousy, masculinity, and sexuality. Reviewed by paulclaassen 5 / 10 Well made film, but way overrated.and rather boring Is this latest gesture a softening that leaves Phil exposed, or a plot twisting further into menace? Then Phil appears to take the boy under his wing. His mockery of her son is more overt, amplified by the cheering of Phil's cowhand disciples. As Phil swings between fury and cunning, his taunting of Rose takes an eerie form - he hovers at the edges of her vision, whistling a tune she can no longer play. Phil behaves so cruelly he drives them both to tears, revelling in their hurt and rousing his fellow cowhands to laughter - all except his brother George, who comforts Rose then returns to marry her. At the Red Mill restaurant on their way to market, the brothers meet Rose, the widowed proprietress, and her impressionable son Peter. The Burbank brothers are wealthy ranchers in Montana. All of Phil's romance, power and fragility is trapped in the past and in the land: He can castrate a bull calf with two swift slashes of his knife he swims naked in the river, smearing his body with mud. Severe, pale-eyed, handsome, Phil Burbank is brutally beguiling.
