Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, along with Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, led all nominations for the 79th Golden Globe Awards with a total of seven. In the end, Campion’s film took home the big award of the night winning Best Motion Picture – Drama, in addition to winning Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for Kodi Smit-McPhee and Best Director for Campion.
The movie follows two well-off, ranch-owning brothers, Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Burbank (Jesse Plemons), in 1925 Montana. The screenplay (written by Campion and nominated for a Golden Globe) is based on the Thomas Savage novel of the same name. The story is relatively simple. After an uncomfortable dinner with his brother and their ranching team, George falls in love with  the restaurant owner, a working-class widow named Rose (Kirsten Dunst). Soon Rose and her teenage son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) move in with the Burbanks, creating and uncovering a web of trauma.
While the plot is easy to describe, The Power of The Dog is difficult to categorize. Yes, it’s a psychological Western drama, but it’s also a story of sexual repression (and possible sexual abuse), a tale of familial demons, a reflection of classism and intimidation, a warning about toxic masculinity, and, perhaps most importantly, the chronicling of a well-executed crime. Even with all of these competing stories, so much of the film’s draw is what’s unsaid and unseen.
There’s the ominous “Bronco” Henry who looms over the broken life of Phil, there’s Rose and Peter’s family history of alcoholism, depression, and suicide, and there’s George’s toxic addiction to low self-esteem and people-pleasing. Every one of these backstories unfolds over Jonny Greenwood’s hypnotic score for the film, also nominated for a Golden Globe, and is buoyed by Campion and her cast’s precise and unnerving timing.
Campion is a New Zealand-born, Australian-based director who’d previously won two Golden Globes and two Academy Awards in 1994 for The Piano (for writing and directing at both ceremonies), as well as with many other accolades.
The Power of the Dog is somewhat new territory for Campion, who had gained a reputation for steering emotional and erotic, female-centered films. While The Power of the Dog certainly doesn’t lack emotion, the film’s dramatic pulse circulates around the relationship between Phil and Peter. Their tension and shifting power dynamic serve as an almost see-saw, coming-of-age story, as Peter comes into his own while Phil degenerates. There’s scorn but there’s also true vulnerability between the two, making it impossible to sum up either as victim or perpetrator.
“It’s kind of a safe place in our society to examine what’s fearful because you know, fear exists, love exists, and they are both really important — and it’s important to process the shadow you know, in order to feel the light as well,” Campion told the Hollywood Foreign Press in 2003 while doing press for another emotionally demanding film In the Cut.
The Power of the Dog, released worldwide through Netflix, premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2021, where Campion won the Silver Lion for Best Direction.