The Power of Expectations in The Power of the Dog
Why do some longings for connection end in bitter isolation? The Power of the Dog invites us to consider how entrenched expectations impact our intimate relationships.
By Kelsey Waddill
This article contains spoilers for the film The Power of the Dog.
“When my father passed, I wanted nothing more than my mother’s happiness,” a young man’s voice says at the beginning of The Power of the Dog. “For what kind of man would I be if I did not help my mother? …if I did not save her?”
Within the first ten minutes of the film, we viewers know how all of the characters are related to one another. In their first exchange during the film, Phil calls George “brother” and offhandedly mentions the “Old Gent” and the “Old Lady,” nicknames for their parents. Immediately following this, we meet Rose and Peter, whose mother-son relationship is quickly established, and we even visit the graveside of Peter’s deceased father. It is Peter, we later realize, who speaks the film’s opening line and poses a question that will haunt the plot.
This quick outline of the two family trees is not an accident or a convenience. Rather, it sets the stage for how family will play a key role in the film—specifically, familial expectations.
Brotherhood, parenthood, and marriage form an undercurrent to the entire plot, carrying it forward. But, far from being a heartwarming exploration of familial bonds like fellow Oscar nominee for Best Picture, Belfast, The Power of the Dog investigates how family ties can reinforce societal expectations and impose conditions that isolate and pressure individuals.
A question emerges: what does each of the characters expect from her or his family members? The answer looks different for each character. How they go about expressing and achieving—or rejecting—those expectations also looks different. And more often than not, we will find these expectations unsatisfied. In exploring the role that the question plays in this fictional setting, we might also find ourselves posing the same question to ourselves and interrogating our own real-world experiences of familial expectations.
The house functions as a symbol for familial and societal expectations, a role that it will play throughout the film.
House Rules
The film opens with Wild West shots: cattle, dust, and shouting men with broad hats on horseback. But, in a matter of seconds, the camera is inside of the family house. The interior is dark, and we see Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) walking in the daylight outside of the house. The camera tracks him, window to window, as he strides across the yard, fitting in with the rugged landscape.
Phil heads inside, entering a space that does not fit his appearance. The house interior, which the camera reveals in greater detail over the course of the film, is opulent: most of the building is covered in dark wood, animal heads line the walls, and the small windows are often decorated with stained glass or unusual pane patterns. Phil goes up to the humbler bedroom he shares with his brother, George Burbank (Jesse Plemons).
Unlike Phil, it is clear from the first moment we meet him that George belongs in the house. He is submerged in the bathtub, a fairly vulnerable activity denoting comfort and trust in his surroundings. That the house is his natural habitat is reinforced whenever we see him outdoors, where his heavy fur coats, tailored suits, clean white shirts, ironed pants, and bow ties all sticking out sorely in the frosty fields or plumes of dust.
In this brief, first exchange, Phil asks George if he remembers how long it had been since they took over the ranch from their parents. In response, George asks Phil if he has ever used the house bath.
Later, the significance of this question becomes more obvious. Phil does not use the house bath because he prefers to bathe in the river, in the same fashion as his mentor and—it becomes clear later—his lover, Bronco Henry. His romantic love for this deceased rancher is what places Phil outside of the house and outside of the family’s expectations of him. He cannot be vulnerable inside of the house, even with his brother. Instead of reminiscing with his brother about their inheriting their parents’ ranch, taking on the family’s expectations, George’s response emphasizes how Phil is separate from the family, physically and characteristically. The house thus functions as a symbol for familial and societal expectations, a role that it will play throughout the film.
In order to exist in this house, Phil must be isolated in his room, able to hear the evidence of his brother’s intimacy but not allowed to experience it himself.
George and Phil’s Search
On a second viewing, it is quickly evident that Phil is grieving the loss of Bronco Henry. He mentions the anniversary of his and George’s taking over the ranch, the anniversary of their first cattle drive, and reminds George of Bronco Henry’s role in mentoring them. Whether consciously or subconsciously, Phil is narrowing the conversation down to what is really on his mind: the anniversary of meeting and falling in love with Bronco Henry.
As Phil wrestles with the loss of Bronco Henry, he cannot tell others about his love because of the social and familial stigmas surrounding homosexuality. But neither can he completely swallow his pain. So he finds ways throughout the film to relive the memory of his lover without revealing the secret of his sexuality. For example, he suggests to George that they hunt elk in the mountains, which is what he and Bronco Henry were doing when they first laid together. He brings up stories about Bronco Henry with the farmhands and with Peter, Rose’s son from a previous marriage. He lovingly polishes Bronco’s saddle.
Phil particularly seeks out his brother for these moments. For the first two parts of the film, we hear Phil asking where George is, or telling his brother that he had been “hanging around for him all day.” We see him seeking out George on the cattle drive and striking up a conversation when they meet at night in the hallway.
Phil may yearn for George to share in his grief because there will be less to explain. As brothers, they shared the experience of having Bronco Henry as their mentor. In fact, George may be the last person on the ranch who actually knew Bronco Henry personally, given the amount of questions Phil has to answer from the ranch hands about the old rancher.
Although he cannot tell George about his affair with the former rancher, Phil tries to find solace in the history that he and George share as brothers. That desire to share his burden with his brother is natural. As the Bible says, “a brother is born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17, RSV), also translated as “kinsfolk are born to share adversity” (NRSV).
But George does not fulfill Phil’s expectations. George refuses to engage the conversations about Bronco Henry. He does not appear to care whether Bronco Henry’s memory stays alive in the same way that Phil does. And when George marries Rose, Phil stops asking after his brother’s whereabouts.
Then, the dynamic shifts.
Suddenly, George begins more frequently looking for Phil, asking about where Phil is. It is not as constant as Phil’s search in the first couple parts of the film, but the shift in initiative is noticeable.
Why does George start looking for Phil? The answer is familial expectations. The first time he goes into the barn to find Phil, he asks—with excruciating awkwardness—for his brother to wash up when the governor and his wife arrive. Not waiting for a reply, he leaves Phil gaping. He seems to expect that his brother will see the sense in his request and comply.
Phil does not see the sense in it. He exerts his power and his freedom by staying outside of the house and not entering for dinner. This causes George to look for him yet again. “We’re counting on your conversation,” George tells his Yale-graduate brother. He begins to apologize, ostensibly for asking Phil to wash up, but Phil cuts him off:
“You two can keep your apologies to yourself. I’m not coming.”
George pushes Phil, asking what he should tell their mother, again invoking familial obligation to pressure Phil, but Phil refuses.
In each of these instances, George looks for ways to bring Phil into the house, both literally and figuratively. He tries to make Phil conform, appealing to Phil’s sense of familial obligation and, indirectly, political pressure.
These interactions underscore again a family dynamic that does not support open, honest dialogue. George reinforces the social narrative of their day, fails to recognize his brother’s grief, and attempts to drag his brother into George’s own personal efforts to conform to their parents’ expectations.
George’s marriage to Rose (Kirsten Dunst) also drives a wedge between the two brothers and causes Phil to resent Rose.
On Rose’s first night at the mansion, after a cold greeting from Phil, George locks the bathroom door from the inside to give Rose privacy while she brushes her teeth. This is the same bathroom in which he was bathing in that initial exchange, the one which adjoins his brother’s room.
Phil sees the key slip into the keyhole, locking him out of the bathroom. With this subtle movement, George establishes a boundary between him and his brother inside of a house that is already full of boundaries for Phil.
In one sense, when George locks the bathroom door, he is locking his brother out—but in another sense, George is locking Phil in. The key comes from George’s side of the door, in essence locking Phil into his room, at least from the bathroom side. In order to exist in this house, Phil must be isolated in his room, able to hear the evidence of his brother’s intimacy but not allowed to experience it himself.
In response to this new barrier, Phil physically leaves the house. This moment marks the beginning of his efforts to force Rose outside of the house–both literally and figuratively.
They are now, in some respect, on equal footing.
Rose
Initially, Rose feels somewhat comfortable inside of the house. George buys a piano for her to play when the governor and George and Phil’s parents visit. She shuts herself further into the house as she settles in to practice, closing more than one door in order to practice in quiet and solitude. Practicing an instrument, like bathing, is somewhat of a vulnerable thing—she makes many mistakes as she works through the piece. In the unfocused background, we see a figure silently slip through the space and up the stairs, a figure we instantly recognize as Phil.
Rose does not notice that someone has intruded her privacy until she hears the wind move a door which Phil left open. When she sees that her privacy has been compromised, a disquieted look immediately creeps across her face. She returns to playing piano, but a banjo starts mimicking her from elsewhere in the house. From a floor up in his room, Phil peers over his instrument and the banister.
Rose grows increasingly insecure. This space she had found predictable and comfortable becomes a space that mocks her. Phil uses his own placement in the house—high up above her, looking down—to impress on her his superiority, despite her closeness to his brother. It is clear from the script that Phil continues to harass Rose over a period of time until she avoids him altogether.
But Phil is not the only family member who indicates that Rose is not good enough for this house.
When the Old Lady and the Old Gent (the Burbank brothers’ parents) and the governor and his wife arrive, Rose clearly does not belong. She came to the house initially as a confident woman who ran her own restaurant and “liked to keep herself busy.” But among the guests, she seems to withdraw—both socially and even physically—from the conversation between the educated and elite guests. The guests, the house, Phil, and sometimes George together reinforce this view.
When she freezes and finds herself unable to play piano for the guests after much cajoling from George, she downs an entire glass of alcohol. This signals her downward spiral as she diverges from familial expectations and escapes through alcoholism.
From that moment forward, in most of Rose’s scenes in the house, she is inebriated or drinking in some capacity. Like Phil, she only finds freedom by escaping the house.
When alcoholism has fully taken root, Phil spies her from his window as she is drinking in an alley between the house and another building. He whistles to her mockingly from his window, staring down at her from a location she cannot see. Phil has successfully forced her outside the house. They are now, in some respect, on equal footing: hiding something from the house, something that would be shameful inside the family. But Phil knows what he is hiding and how to hide it well, which makes him feel powerful over Rose, who is insecure. Instead of drawing closer together, these two outcasts further isolate each other.
Both Phil and Peter have no place to bring their sorrow and their families do not seem to recognize their pain.
Peter’s Question
While Phil is at the center of much of the story’s narrative, we would be remiss to ignore Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and his family ties, particularly since it is Peter who asks one of the most poignant questions in the film.
Although the first scenes of the film are fixed on Phil visually, the first voice we hear is that of Peter, speaking over the beginning credits. At the time, we do not know who he is or even what he looks like. By the end of the film, many viewers may have forgotten his opening lines.
Yet his question sets the tone for the film, introducing the theme of family and offering an explanation for the extreme acts of an otherwise fairly unreadable character.
“When my father passed, I wanted nothing more than my mother’s happiness,” Peter’s disembodied voice explains as the production companies’ names appear and vanish. “For what kind of man would I be if I did not help my mother? …if I did not save her?”
Like Phil, then, Peter is grieving the loss of a loved one. In the first few minutes of the film, we see Peter visit his father’s grave—we later learn that his father, Dr. John Gordon, died by suicide.
Both Phil and Peter have no place to bring their sorrow and their families do not seem to recognize their pain. George will not reminisce about Bronco Henry, and Rose says she thought Peter might leave his medical books at home—forgetting the fact that they were his father’s, and perhaps an important keepsake for a young boy whose mother has just remarried.
Peter believes that his identity as a man is wrapped up in his familial obligation. “What kind of man would he be” if he did not make it so that his mother receives what he thinks she deserves?
But what does Peter think Rose deserves? In their very first interaction in the film, Rose walks in on Peter decorating a scrapbook. Along with sketches and cut-outs, there is a photograph of a mansion.
“Do you like the mansion?” Peter asks his mother.
“Too much to clean,” Rose responds.
“You wouldn’t have to clean it,” Peter insists. “There’d be…cleaners.”
Rose just laughs, but it becomes clear that this is what Peter wants for his mother: material and relational comfort. Long before Phil begins terrorizing Rose, Peter views his mother as helpless. He asks what kind of man he would be if he did not “save her.”
George and the Old Lady assert familial expectations by telling Phil what his family role is. They tell him he should wash up. They tell him he should be at dinner.
In contrast, Peter does not tell Rose what he thinks his mother should be or what his expectations for her are. Instead, he manipulates circumstances in order to care for her. His goal is to reshape reality and his method is murder.
When Rose, very inebriated, invites Peter into her room for a chat, Peter seems to be overcome by the disparity between the girl she was (in his words, “beautiful” and with “a great many valentines”) and the woman she now is (isolated and addicted to alcohol). Peter ignores what she wants to talk about and says, “Mother, you don’t have to do this. I’ll see you don’t have to do it.”
In the next scene, Peter is plotting how to use anthrax to murder Phil, his mother’s antagonist.
Does Peter seem to desire good things for his mother? Yes, not least ending her alcoholism. But he goes about it by ignoring her agency and unilaterally imposing his expectations upon her. And most importantly, he tries to achieve those expectations for her in an entirely immoral way: murder.
It is also healthy, at times, to recognize ourselves as outside of the house and not fully aligned with our families’ expectations.
Conclusion
Power of the Dog portrays complex family dynamics. Broken characters clearly want to lean on one another and expect family members to fulfill certain roles in their lives. But, tragically, none of them are well-equipped to articulate their needs, satisfy the others’ needs, or support each other adequately.
The Burbank family may be an unusually bleak and extreme example. However, there are veins of truth in the characters’ struggles that mirror our own lives. Family members will fail to meet our expectations. But sometimes our expectations may not be fair.
It is healthy for us to ask ourselves questions like the one that Peter poses at the film’s opening, questions that explore what we want from and for our family and how that is entangled with our own identity. But we must also step back and evaluate those desires alongside our family’s desires for us. What do these expectations say about where we are looking for others to fulfill or validate us? Where might we need to communicate those needs or desires to others? If we do not examine these deep longings and their implications, we may end up fostering the hatred and resentment that is on display in Power of the Dog.
It is also healthy, at times, to recognize ourselves as outside of the house and not fully aligned with our families’ expectations. The question that the film does not answer is: how do we navigate that?
If you or someone you love is navigating questions like these and struggling with isolation or depression, please do not hesitate to reach out to resources such as your state’s mental healthcare specialist.
I want to end by saying that I’ve touched on Phil’s perspective throughout this article. As a heterosexual woman, I cannot know Phil’s experience as a gay man. While I’ve done my best to portray what I perceive in his familial relationships, there is probably a lot I have missed. Hopefully, this article serves as a stepping stone toward deeper conversations around the aspects to which I cannot do justice.
Kelsey Waddill lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She is the multimedia manager at Xtelligent Healthcare Media and senior editor for HealthPayerIntelligence, pursuing healthcare journalism through podcasting, video, and written work. She graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2018 with a double major in Film and Media Studies and Writing Seminars.