Netflix’s first teaser trailer from The Power of the Dog features Oscar nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game) whistling and laughing, yet without a word of dialogue he’s able to set us on edge. Although the teaser trailer gives nothing away, it does show off gorgeous cinematography and establishes the film’s tone.
In addition to unveiling a first teaser, Netflix’s released a new poster and photos from the Western written and directed by Oscar winner Jane Campion (The Piano).
Joining Cumberbatch in the drama are Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Thomasin McKenzie, Frances Conroy, Keith Carradine, Peter Carroll, and Adam Beach. Dunst and Plemons will be playing a married couple in the film and off-screen the duo – who met while working on FX’s Fargo – have two children together.
Writer/director Campion produces along with Emile Sherman, Iain Canning, Roger Frappier, and Tanya Seghatchian. Campion’s behind the scenes team includes Director of Photography Ari Wegner, Production Designer Grant Major, Costume Designer Kirsty Cameron, Composer Jonny Greenwood, and Editor Peter Scibberas. The Power of the Dog is a See-Saw Films, Bad Girl Creek and Max Films production in association with Brightstar, The New Zealand Film Commission, Cross City Films and BBC Film.
Netflix is planning a November 17, 2021 release in select theaters followed by a release on the streaming service on December 1st.
Netflix’s Official Synopsis:
“Severe, pale-eyed, handsome, Phil Burbank is brutally beguiling. All of Phil’s romance, power and fragility is trapped in the past and in the land: He can castrate a bull calf with two swift slashes of his knife; he swims naked in the river, smearing his body with mud. He is a cowboy as raw as his hides.
The year is 1925. The Burbank brothers are wealthy ranchers in Montana. At the Red Mill restaurant on their way to market, the brothers meet Rose, the widowed proprietress, and her impressionable son Peter. Phil behaves so cruelly he drives them both to tears, reveling in their hurt and rousing his fellow cowhands to laughter – all except his brother George, who comforts Rose then returns to marry her.
As Phil swings between fury and cunning, his taunting of Rose takes an eerie form – he hovers at the edges of her vision, whistling a tune she can no longer play. His mockery of her son is more overt, amplified by the cheering of Phil’s cowhand disciples. Then Phil appears to take the boy under his wing. Is this latest gesture a softening that leaves Phil exposed, or a plot twisting further into menace?”
