Tag: Toxic Masculinity

The Power of the Dog Year: 2021 Rating: R Length: 126 minutes / 2.10 hours Every once in a while, a movie comes along and gets a lot of award buzz. Often, these movies exhibit some traits of highly lauded films that came before them. Critics often think these latter films can "make up" for snubs of previous movies that they think should have won awards but did not. The Power of the Dog (2021) seems to fit this bill as the spiritual successor to Brokeback Mountain (2005) with its heavy tones of homosexuality in the lonely and harsh setting of the west. The problem I have with The Power of the Dog is how the main character, Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a prime example of toxic masculinity—to the point where it's almost parody. Sure, the audience wants to see him get what's coming to him, but we also have to sit through two hours of him being an incredibly manipulative and abusive person...