A year after release, 'The Power of the Dog' is in the Criterion Collection. That was sure fast. And it's just not that good, despite foaming-at-the-mouth critical acclaim and awards. It's actually a nasty story about an effeminate-but-not-queer college-age kid who uses his new medical knowledge and guile to exact revenge on a screwed-up, unpleasant, tormented, misogynistic, closeted man (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) in 1925 Montana. The narrative is revealed in the very first voice-over. Moreover, it's a chronological catastrophe. Set ostensibly in 1925, we see the eventual killer-kid playing with a hoola hoop, which wasn't invented until the late 1950s. 21st-century expressions abound like "I'm good", which sounds like a wrong note. The list of anachronisms goes on. One of the funniest is the Benedict Cumberbatch character's answer in the vernacular affirmative: "Bloody tootin'!", blending period British and US slang. Did no one notice? Also, despite all the research about the settlement of the west--and 1925 is at least 30 years too late for this, no one seems to have read that same-sex relationships and romance were not seen as shameful or even unusual. Director Jane Campion gets genuflecting praise because... she's Jane Campion. While she makes New Zealand-as-Montana look breath-taking, and the acting is fine, this 2+-hour film, despite a few captivating moments when it's not ponderous or embarrassing, is a mess.
Review of The Power of the Dog
