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The Power of the Dog (2021)

An article on the best movies on Netflix said that this was "not just one of the best movies on Netflix right now: It’s one of the best movies ever." Unfortunately it turned out to be great only in the sense that some of those "great novels" I had to read in literature class were great, i.e. totally wretched.

The main characters in this one are a pair of brothers who are cattle ranchers together in Montana (played by New Zealand) in the 1920s. One of them, Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a hard man. Though they've worked together for decades, he considers his brother George (Jesse Plemons) to be something of a wimp. George is sweet on the widow lady (Kirsten Dunst) who runs a cookhouse where the ranchers often eat. Phil doesn't think much of her, the more so as her late husband had committed suicide, which Phil evidently considers a rather wussy thing to do. As for the widow's teenage son (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who has artistic leanings, Phil thinks he's a total pansy. This is all played out as if it were written in neon signs.

George is incredibly awkward courting the widow, the more so after they suddenly up and get married, which George doesn't even tell Phil about until afterwards. Uh-oh, there's trouble ahead, forced on the story by the contorted plot. I stopped watching at this point and consulted the Wikipedia plot summary, which I'd previously avoided. Yup, there's trouble ahead. I'm glad I didn't have to watch any more of this tortured pretentious mess.