The Power of the Dog (2021)

Campion makes a triumphant return with a ferocious western about toxic masculinity. Cumberbatch delivers a menacing yet vulnerable performance in an unbearably tense masterpiece.

The critic declares an indecently powerful western that is a triumphant, multifaceted return for Campion and a guaranteed awards frontrunner. They single out Cumberbatch’s mesmerizing and utterly convincing performance as the embittered rancher Phil.

Campion returns with one of the best films of her career, a triumph of quiet mystery and devastating storytelling in a patriarchal world. The landscape and character revelations reward repeat viewings.

The critic calls it a wickedly great, masterfully tense Western drama and a brilliant murderous fable about masculine strength. Singles out Cumberbatch's career-best performance as equal parts menacing and vulnerable.

Campion reasserts her mastery with a brilliantly acted, insidiously gripping adaptation that reveals a new side of Cumberbatch in a masterful performance. The film excels in its psychological depth, attention to detail, and subversion of western conventions.

The critic calls Campion’s film a superb gothic western that is mysterious and menacing, one of the director’s best, made with artistry and command. They single out the queasy touches and the way the story hangs with an air of tragedy, dysfunction and horror, like Ibsen.

The critic praises Campion's return with a psychologically complex Western shifting to themes of corrosive masculinity and repressed sexuality. Highlights transfixing performances, especially from Cumberbatch and Smit-McPhee, on an epic canvas.

Campion delivers a staggering take on the western in which a cruel cowboy meets his surprising match. The film explores the inner worlds and tensions among its characters with precision and depth.

The review highlights a blistering, career-best performance from Benedict Cumberbatch as the mercurial fiend Phil in Campion’s dark psychological western. It praises the stark and deadly beauty of the landscapes and the constant sense of prickling intrigue.

The critic hails Campion's triumphant return with a majestic and unnerving Western set in 1925 Montana. Praises the understated storytelling and Cumberbatch's nuanced portrayal of a complex, need-driven character.

Campion returns with a sensual, layered Western that peels back repression and desire in 1920s Montana. The film is praised for its wounded central character study and striking visuals from Ari Wegner.

Campion explodes ideas of masculinity in this adaptation, with strong performances and atmospheric tension building to a gripping third act. The film is ambitious and brilliant despite minor flaws in one lead performance.

Jane Campion’s most elegant film in years is a brooding ranch drama with hidden depths. It singles out Benedict Cumberbatch’s shrewd, central performance for praise while noting some meandering tendencies.

A powerful turn from Cumberbatch anchors this prairie-set period drama that is Campion’s most thoroughly conceived and consistently involving work for years. The adaptation captures dysfunctional family dynamics and repressed desires with nuance.

Campion delivers a gripping psychodrama that draws out the instability of American West myths through a ranch family feud. The film excels in its slow-burn exploration of repressed masculinity and power dynamics.

Campion’s anti-western is a claustrophobic chamber piece focused on family cruelties and miseries rather than epic scope. The central standoff between characters is tense and compelling, though some performances feel less convincing in the setting.

Campion’s psychodramatic western is impeccably crafted with stately precision and strong performances but feels overly programmatic and lacks the passionate, populist poetry of her earlier work like The Piano. The message denouncing homophobia is clear but not revelatory enough.

Campion's latest lacks the richly personal feminism of her early films and feels borrowed and literary rather than organic. The ominous atmosphere and Cumberbatch's menacing performance verge on caricature, though the fable-like treatment of unspoken desires has some merit.

The critic praises Campion's direction and the performances, especially Cumberbatch's as Phil and Smit-McPhee's as Peter, noting the film's exploration of toxic masculinity and its visual impact. Verdict is highly positive, calling it an essential film and Campion on top form.

The critic highlights Campion's masterful direction of a subtle, menacing neo-Western, with Cumberbatch delivering a career-best performance as the cruel Phil, and the film's tension-building through details and imagery leading to a powerful conclusion.

The critic calls it 2021's best movie so far, an immense portrait of psychological torture and toxic masculinity with awe-inspiring cinematography and complex performances, especially Cumberbatch's. It highlights the film's meditative quality, unexpected emotional depths, and rewarding rewatch value.

The film is a Trojan horse that appears to be a Western but is actually a Gothic psychodrama filled with psychological warfare and unsettling tension. Campion delivers a startling, deeply moving work with Cumberbatch terrifying as the domineering Phil.

The critic praises Benedict Cumberbatch's superlative performance as the petulant, macho Phil and the film's elegant, unnerving accomplishment as a slow-burn Western about toxic masculinity and power dynamics. It notes the strong ensemble acting but finds the sustained mood of inevitability slightly oppressive at times.

A meticulously engineered exercise in tension and a haunting study of male violence and repression, with forensic storytelling and a chilling Cumberbatch performance that eviscerates the illusion of control. It lacks some emotional depth and gutting specificity of Campion's prior works.

Campion has made a complex and probing adaptation of Thomas Savage’s novel about two very different Montana rancher brothers caught in a twisted emotional bind. It is a serious, ambitious, living and breathing work that sticks in the mind and makes one want to examine it from different angles.