The power of the dog
(DVD) 

Originally released as a motion picture in 2021.

Based on the book by Thomas Savage.

Cinematographer, Ari Wegner ; editor, Peter Sciberras ; music, Jonny Greenwood.

Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Thomasin McKenzie, Genevieve Lemon, Keith Carradine, Frances Conroy.

"Jane Campion returns to the kind of mythic frontier landscape - pulsating with both freedom and menace - that she previously traversed in The Piano in order to plumb the masculine psyche in The Power of the Dog, set against the desolate plains of 1920s Montana and adapted by the filmmaker from Thomas Savage's novel. After a sensitive widow (Kirsten Dunst) and her enigmatic, fiercely loving son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) move in with her gentle new husband (Jesse Plemons), a tense battle of wills plays out between them and his brutish brother (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose frightening volatility conceals a secret torment, and whose capacity for tenderness, once reawakened, may offer him redemption or destruction. Campion, who won an Academy Award for her direction here, charts the repressed desire and psychic violence coursing among these characters with the mesmerizing control of a master at the height of her powers."--Container.

Phil, a successful rancher who works alongside his younger brother George, living by the same principles that their mentor, Bronco Henry, had taught them at a younger age. When George announces he has taken a wife, Rose, who works in a local restaurant, and her son, Peter, extreme tension ensues. Phil doesn't take kindly to Rose or Peter and torments both every chance he gets until eventually strikes up a more complex relationship with Peter. Phil finally reaches his breaking point when Rose requests that the Native Americans on their land take all the cowhide that Phil has been using to make Peter a rope. Phil sees making this rope and forming this bond with Peter as a way of recreating the relationship he had with Bronco Henry. Unbeknownst to Phil, Peter has taken the hide off a diseased dead cow earlier. Phil weaves the rope, soaking his hands in the same liquid that the diseased cowhide is in, not wearing any gloves and with a large open cut on his hand. The next day, he falls sick, and George takes him to the doctor, but he doesn't make it, succumbing to his infection. It is suggested to George that Phil died from anthrax at Phil's funeral, but George dismisses this notion because Phil was always very clear about not working with diseased animals. After Phil's death, in his room, Peter handles the rope that Phil had made for him with gloves on, but he pushes it under the bed as he hears George and Rose come home from the funeral. Peter looks out his bedroom window to see the two embracing, smiles, and walks away.

MPAA rating: R; for brief sexual content/full nudity.

English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (SDH).

English descriptive audio track for people with visual disabilities.

DVD, NTSC; region 1, Dolby audio 5.1 surround, 2.28:1 aspect ratio.

Home use only.

In English.

2021 Academy Awards: Directing (Jane Campion) ; 2022 BAFTA Awards: Best film, Best director