‘The Power Of The Dog’: Read The Screenplay For Jane Campion’s Savage Snapshot Of The American West

deadline.com:

Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel The Power of the Dog had been percolating for some time in the back of the brain of filmmaker Jane Campion, previously an Academy Award winner for writing the screenplay for The Piano.

Eventually, she felt compelled to adapt it for the screen.“It intrigued me for many reasons: I couldn’t guess what was going to happen, it was incredibly detailed, and I felt that the person writing the story had lived this experience,” says Campion. “It’s not just a cowboy story from 1925 of ranch life.

This is a lived experience, and I think because of that I felt a real trust for the story. I loved how deeply it explores masculinity and that it’s also about a hidden love.”At the center of The Power of the Dog is Montana rancher Phil Burbank (played in the film by Benedict Cumberbatch), a charismatic but unflinchingly cruel figure that dominates his ranch hands.

When his gentler brother George (Jesse Plemons) marries, Phil levels his brutal, bullying sights on George’s wife Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her sensitive son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee).