BAFTA: Jane Campion's "The Power of a Dog" wins top awards

Jane Campion's The Power of a Dog, based on Thomas Savage's novel of the same title, wins top awards at the British Academy Film Awards. The Power of a Dog, with eight BAFTA nominations, came away from the ceremony with both the Best Film and Best Director awards. The film, in keeping with well-executed adaptations, honours Savage's novel.

The Power of the Dog, a 2021 Western psychological drama film, stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. For a film that runs a little over two hours, noting the source material, it covers a lot of ground.

The film revolves around such themes as love, grief, resentment, jealousy, and sexuality. Consequently, because of this, the production isn't without a modicum of controversy. You can't please everyone.

"This is an exquisitely crafted film, its unhurried rhythms continually shifting as plangent notes of melancholy, solitude, torment, jealousy and resentment surface," The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney wrote, "Campion is in full control of her material, digging deep into the turbulent inner life of each of her characters with unerring subtlety."

The Power of the Dog, the first film directed by a woman to pick up more than ten Academy Award nominations, has garnered significant praise. Some film critics, on the other hand, have argued The Power of a Dog doesn't accurately reflect the Montana setting.

"All of this should build, slowly and inexorably, in force and emotion. But for a film that's actually, at heart, rather tidy and old-fashioned in its triangular gamesmanship, The Power of the Dog needed to get to a more bruising catharsis. In its crucial last act, the film becomes too oblique," Variety's Owen Gleiberman wrote.

Savage's novel, published in 1967, revolves around two brothers. Montana ranchers Phil and George Burbank, respectively played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons, couldn't be more different if they tried. They personify oil and water.

Phil, when George returns home married, looks with disdain at his brother's wife Rose and her son Peter. Rose and Peter Gordon, respectively played by Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee, simply want a quiet ordinary family life.

The Power of the Dog, further to Cumberbatch, Plemons, Dunst, and Smit-McPhee, also stars Thomasin McKenzie, Genevieve Lemon, Keith Carradine, Frances Conroy, Peter Carroll, Alison Bruce, Alistair Sewell, Cohen Holloway, Sean Keenan, Adam Beach, Maeson Stone Skuggedal, and Alice Englert.

Campion, for her work on the 1993 period drama The Piano, picked up the Academy Awards win for Best Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen.

The 1994 Academy Awards, noting significant competition, saw Campion facing off against Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List for Best Director and Best Picture. Other films nominated for Best Picture included The Fugitive, In the Name of the Father, and The Remains of the Day. The awards, despite the quality of the line-up, went to Spielberg's Schindler's List.

The Power of the Dog, with eleven Academy Award nominations, has a good chance of picking up a few awards. The quality of the work is readily apparent. No one can deny Cumberbatch and Plemons, given their respective reputations, didn't turn in award winning performances.

Cumberbatch, from AACTA International Awards and Alliance of Women Film Journalists, has already seen his work yield fruit in the form of Best Actor awards. More awards should be heading in his direction.