The Power of the Dog (2021)

Saw The Power of the Dog, which is one of those noir westerns: very moody, very ominous, full of ugly dirt and cruelty.  This film is divided into a few acts, however the story falls roughly into two pieces in my mind: in the first half, a rancher falls in love with a restaurant proprietress in town and marries her, much to the sinister, passive aggression of his brother, an unsmiling, cruel, loud man who begins a campaign of terror on the new, demure wife.  In the second half, the new wife's son comes home from school.  The son is bone-thin and effete, his formal language and emotional flatness indicating a spectrum disorder.  He soon becomes the target of the brother's cruelties.

The film is restrained and hypnotic.  Seemingly innocent scenes are freighted with dread significance by groaning cellos and horns.  It reminded me a lot of Meek's Cutoff in its grim, subtle ambiguity.  Midway through the film, the cruel brother's behavior to the new wife's son changes from cruel to kind.  He offer to weave a rope for the son as a peace offering.  Why this change in his attitude?  Is it real, or just a trap for further cruelty?  Or perhaps will his kindness be more damaging than his cruelty?  Even his gift is ambiguous and seems sinister.  A rope is for tying and capturing, after all.  What better symbol for the capture of the new wife's son?  The intentions of this cruel brother for the son was the most interesting part of the film for me.  The question is both fascinating and repellent and is a microcosm of the film as a whole.

And, as opposed to Meek's Cutoff, the ending of this film is supremely satisfying.  It is subtle enough that one of the first suggestions when you google "The Power of the Dog" is "The Power of the Dog ending explained" but just pay attention and you'll see what happened.  The hypnotic soundtrack tipped me off that this was a film to really watch.

I enjoyed the film.  It was essentially a psychodrama, most interested in the girl-world-style power struggles between the wife and the brother.  What the characters are up to and what they want are kept a little obscured (particularly the motivations of the brother) and this kept me worrying over the film in my mind after the credits rolled.  I did see the ending coming however which made me feel clever and smug.