Best Supporting Actor 2021: Jesse Plemons in The Power of the Dog

Jesse Plemons received his first Oscar nomination for portraying George Burbank in The Power of the Dog. 

Jesse Plemons is one of the most dynamic young actors of his generation and one of the most prolific. Already in his very young career he's played such a rich variety of roles and complex characters for such a interesting variety of directors. This yet another example of such with Jane Campion casting him here as the younger "good" brother to the domineering cowboy Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch). Now as much as Plemons is often cast by great directors it sometimes has not been in the most interesting or engaging roles, well this is one of those examples. He's here really to be overshadowed by the other performances, particularly Cumberbatch. From their first scene together Cumberbatch is doing everything in the scene, while Plemons is giving straight forward responses as the more internalized man. He conveys the slight unease with his brother's manner but largely shows a man just kind of keeping to the expectation of his life as a rancher. Phil brow beats George just like he does everyone else. Plemons's reaction is effective in showing in his eyes his hatred for Phil just as his face maintains the passive indifference of a man who will never stand up to his far stronger willed brother. He's the odd gentleman out of the whole rowdy crew. He doesn't join in with his brother's act of terrors, but he doesn't exactly stand against them. 

 

Plemons's performance is instead is one of a calm disappointment but also resignation to his fate of being under the thumb of this seemingly stronger man. One such terror is at the expense of a local restaurateur and single mother Rose (Kirsten Dunst) who is left in tears after a day of Phil's antics. George goes to comfort her and Plemons portrays the passive man reaching out to this woman. There's a nice modest moment he shows at first of the man nearly breaking down himself in empathy and speaking his words of comfort as a man who will try to make up for his brother even if he won't step up to stop him. He then courts her which is depicted largely with Plemons carrying the same expression of passivity and resignation. The same act that carries as he even tells Phil he's marrying Rose much to Phil's dismay. Where Plemon's performance succeeds is you do understand the history of George with Phil, this as the brother used to his brother and settled with it. He still has emotion regarding the man's bullying but it is in the form of being just a man resigned to his fate as always being under his brother's will in at least some way. Plemons portrays a man bottled up as a defense mechanism for his life, with minor cracks as his only forms of expression. 

 

We see this perhaps most realized in his one major romantic moment with Rose as she sorta dances with him and he says how nice it is to not be alone. Plemons's delivery is absolutely fine in showing this escape of warmth, but I have to admit, the impact feels a touch muted, the emotion kind of cold even as the scene seems designed for a bit more poignancy. Of course this is all just the first third of the film, and after this point Plemons falls largely into the background, even though much of the film concerns Phil terrorizing George's new wife. Plemons's performance, no matter how dire Rose gets or any revelations of the plot, stays in the same passive state. Whether Rose is drowning in a depression fueled by booze or Phil well dies, George stays basically the same. I guess that's just who George is, or is it that Plemons's own performance might just be a touch too passive here. I'd say it is kind of both. Plemons establishes well who George is, what his relationship is with Phil and Rose, and that's all there is to him. This is in part the story ends up not being about George, but at the same time there are opportunities, even within the limitations presented the writing that aren't explored. Extremely subtle performances can say more than this one does, though this does say a few things. Plemons however is consistent to a fault, in that George ends up not being terribly interesting, and as much as he works as a cog within the film's storytelling machine, I doubt it would've distracted from the overall drama if he had been more interesting as well whether that be through conveying more within the repression or breaking away from that repression a bit more. This is not example though of Plemons ever being bad in a role, he creates a strong foundation within the film, within the character, but he and Campion leave it as such, which feels like a missed opportunity both for the film and for the actor.