Heigh- Ho, western fans! This week on Fabulous Film and friends we’re going to circle back and discuss Jane Campion’s 2021 comeback effort and Oscar frontrunner, The Power of The Dog starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee. It was mentioned on our year in review last week as a top film, but no time was spent hunkering down on its finer points.
I’m yer host Gino Caputi and joining me on this conceptual cattle drive is my sister and unabashed Jane Campion lover Roseanne Caputi, don’t get her started on The Piano, Son of a Dairyman and grandson to one of Eastern Oregon’s great cattle barons David Johnson, D.M.D., New Plymouth Idaho’s own Burton Brown, no stranger to cow manure he. And a man who wore a cowboy hat once in a Penn State black box theater reimagining of As You Like It, GORDON ALEX ROBERTSON!
Just do you don't get lost: The synopsis
In The Power of The Dog, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons play Phil and George Burbank, respectively, two rich Montana cattle ranchers who on a drive with their ranch hands, stop in a town called Beech where they dine and sleep at an Inn run by a suicide widow Rose Gordon and her lisping, paper flower-making son, Peter. Phil is cruel and derisive of Rose’s sensitive son, while George is understanding and serves as a shoulder for Rose to cry on after Phil and his team of cowpolks clear out.
Rose and George form an attachment and are soon married, causing Phil to withdraw from the family and to treat Rose and her son in an even pettier and wickeder manner.
Phil’s treatment of Rose drives her to take up drinking and, in an effort to gall Rose, perhaps to the point of madness and death, Phil takes Peter under his wing.
Teaching Peter to ride and to build fences like a true cow polk, Phil seems to succeed in his plan until he is completely blindsided by the far more hard-edged and formidable Peter.
What's it all about? What is The Power of The Dog?
Find out!
