Warning: Spoilers for The Power of the DogThe Power of the Dog is the most recent film from renowned director Jane Campion. The film has taken award season by storm, centering around a narrative that dispels the classic masculine mythos of the American West. The Power of the Dog revolves around a rancher, Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch), who launches a psychological war against his brother’s new wife and her son. Phil believes that Rose (Kirsten Dunst) is out to exploit his brother, George (Jesse Plemons), for his land and wealth in the hopes of carving out a better lot for her son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee).
Upon meeting Peter, Phil seems to utterly disdain him, taking the paper roses he made by hand at their dinner table and using them to light his cigarette. Phil takes Peter’s artistic senses and kind demeanor as a sign of weakness, taking any chance he has to reinforce how weak he thinks Peter is. Once Phil finds out that George is courting Rose, he immediately begins voicing his opposition, going as far as to write their parents a letter about the windowed-swindler he seems to think is in their midst.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
The threat that Phil sees in Rose is nowhere near reality. Phil’s anger is a reflection of his own loneliness after his dear mentor, Bronco Henry, passed away. With the thought of Rose plucking his brother away, Phil goes on the offensive to ensure she and Peter feel no warmth or welcome in their new family. Phil goes as far as to push Rose into alcoholism, leading her on a self-destructive path. When Peter discovers that Phil’s relationship with Bronco Henry may have been romantic in nature, Phil begins to take a liking to Peter, helping him to embrace the ruggedness of the rancher lifestyle so that he might leave his “weak and effeminate” lifestyle behind.
In reality, Phil thinks he is saving Peter from the pain of being judged for his “unnatural” life choices. Phil’s rugged demeanor is an elaborate closet, hiding his true self. He hopes by building up Peter’s ruggedness, he can do what Bronco Henry did for him, providing a suit of armor against the world’s judgment. While Peter is happy to tag along with Phil and learn his ways, he eventually realizes he must make a choice. Does he save his mother from her alcoholic path to self-destruction or continue to embrace Phil as his mentor?
The Choice
Netflix
Prior to being a rancher under the mentorship of Bronco Henry, Phil was a Yale graduate learned in the classics. Despite this intellectual background, Phil is now nothing of the sort. He lives, walks, and talks like a rancher. Phil is specifically offended by George’s request that he wash up before they dine with the governor and his wife, almost as though this stink was his sense of pride in masking what he believes was weakness. The audience is never told of what specifically made Phil change paths, but based on his bullying of Peter. It’s likely that he was pained by his own desires and saw himself as a weak man that needed fixing. It’s never stated if Bronco Henry and Phil engaged in a mutual romantic relationship or that they simply just shared body heat in the nude for survival. Still, regardless Bronco’s teachings provided Phil an armor. If the feelings were mutual, Phil could have had his cake and eaten it, too, maintaining his masculine projection and acting on his innermost desires. With Bronco dead, this only left the exterior. With no way for Phil to express his desires anymore, a rage of loneliness built inside him, seemingly festering for years.
Peter is a sensitive and artistic boy, and while his homosexuality is never expressed directly, it’s inferred. Before his father hung himself, he had told Peter that the world needed more sensitive men, a sentiment Phil disagrees with. As Peter is in this environment on the ranch, there are signs that he is losing a bit of that sensitivity, as he kills a rabbit just to experiment on it, something his mother said was an act she wouldn’t think he would have committed prior. As Peter cozies up closer with Phil, he may want to build the same macho exterior that Phil maintains. Rose notices this, only driving her further into her depression and alcoholism. After Rose drunkenly sells Phil’s hides to local Native Americans, Phil has a fit, wanting something to be done about Rose once and for all. It’s at this moment that Peter knows he has to make a choice, continue to side with Phil and possibly lose his mother to alcoholism or kill Phil and prevent his mother’s spiral. Peter chooses the latter. With Phil distraught he can’t finish the lasso he was making, Peter volunteers a hide he has, which is infected by anthrax. Phil places the infected hide in water, and anthrax enters his body through an infected cut, dooming him instantly.
The Consequences
The next morning, Phil’s wound has become deeply infected, as he wanders around in a haze trying to find Peter, so he can give him the lasso he made. George takes Phil to the doctor, and not soon after, he passes away. Peter’s plan worked, and his mother is sober and more optimistic about the future with it now void of Phil. In the film’s final moments, Peter places the infected rope underneath the bed with gloves and reads a psalm, “deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.” Peter has saved his mother but has used the sword to do it. Is this an action he can come back from? His happiness at the end suggests that this may be the case, but the lass suggests otherwise. If the lasso is infected, why keep it?
It can be argued it’s due to the feelings Peter may have started to feel for Phil, he decided to keep the lasso, but it could also symbolize Peter keeping the door open for an exit from his guilt. Peter’s father had hung himself with a rope, and perhaps Peter is holding onto it in the event he isn’t able to overcome his guilt. Suicide was thought to be a coward’s/weak act during the time of the American West. Phil even emphasizes this point. Could Peter putting that lasso away be a way of saying he’s putting his weakness behind, which could, in turn, mean he is embracing Phil’s rugged ways? What is also likely is that Peter is embracing both sides of himself, the sensitive/effeminate side and the one that will do whatever it takes to protect his mother. Maybe it was Phil’s mistake, thinking he had to pick one.
Will Peter Become Phil?
It can be said that Peter was doomed to become like Phil one way or another, as during this period and place in American history, it was impossible for a soul like Peter to thrive without feeling the wrath of those who see him as weak. If Phil and Peter are to be thought of as two sides of the same coin, perhaps Peter gave up too quickly on Phil by going to bear the sword, embracing murder as a tool for solving problems, an old troupe of the West. Peter had to become the very thing his mother hated in order for her to survive, cold, calculating, and murderous.
At the start of the film, Peter talks about how his father passed and that he would do absolutely anything for his mother. He seizes this promise, despite the fact that doing anything might compromise his own identity. Peter’s actions against Phil come from a place of love, whereas Phil’s come from a place of pain. In this sense, the two can never be alike, but to say Peter doesn’t come out of this unscathed is an optimistic idea most unlikely for the time in which he lives.
