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Foe (15)

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Aaron Pierre, Paul Mescal
Genre: SciFi
Author(s): Iain Reid, Garth Davis
Director: Garth Davis
Release Date: 20/10/2023 (selected cinemas)
Running Time: 110mins
Country: Australia
Year: 2023

In 2065, Earth has almost exhausted its capacity to sustain human life. Junior and wife Henrietta live in the desolate Midwest where water is a precious commodity. Late one night, corporate lackey Terrance arrives unannounced to disclose that Junior has been shortlisted to escape his "mundane" life and travel alone to a space station that orbits Earth. If he is conscripted, a biomechanical doppelganger will care for Henrietta in his absence.


LondonNet Film Review

Foe (15) Film Review from LondonNet

The use of generative AI is one of the burning issues at the heart of ongoing strikes in Hollywood so the timing of director Garth Davis’s contemplative sci-fi drama about a brave new world of self-determinative lifeforms is serendipitous to say the least. Alas, it’s a case of right time, wrong film because his portrait of a marriage in crisis, shot in Australia in early 2022, feels almost as parched of emotion as the barren, sun-scorched expanse of mid-21st-century America depicted on screen in sweeping vistas conjured by cinematographer Matyas Erdrly. Adapted by Davis and co-writer Iain Reid from the latter’s 2018 novel, Foe is a three-hander between Saoirse Ronan, Paul Mescal and Aaron Pierre which unravels mysteries of the human heart in long, ponderous takes that tease ethical questions answered far more succinctly (and thrillingly) by Blade Runner and its imitators…

Sparing use of visual effects to realise otherworldly aircraft and a hulking space station hint at the futuristic dystopia beyond the frame of the screen. However, Davis predominantly confines us to a farmhouse where characters navel gaze and attempt to conceal a reveal that is obvious from the outset. Ronan and Mescal work tirelessly to milk droplets of tension from dialogue but they give us few reasons to care about their married couple before an artificially intelligent interloper enters their home and tests the boundaries of a fractious co-dependency.

In 2065, Earth has almost exhausted its capacity to sustain human life and preparations are underway for off-planet colonies overseen by a corporation called OuterMore. Junior (Mescal) and wife Henrietta (Ronan) live in the desolate Midwest where water is a precious commodity and cacophonous dust storms are a regular occurrence. She is a diner waitress while he works on an assembly line, visually inspecting industrially farmed chickens bound for supermarket shelves.

Late one night, OuterMore lackey Terrance (Pierre) arrives unannounced to disclose that Junior has been shortlisted to escape his “mundane” life and travel alone to a space station that orbits Earth. If he is conscripted, a biomechanical doppelganger will care for Henrietta in his absence. “I don’t want a robot living with my wife,” snarls Junior, who has no say in the matter. As the mission deadline approaches, Terrance forcibly inserts himself into the couple’s home to harvest Junior’s memories through exhausting one-on-one interviews with the husband.

Foe makes an enemy of anyone expecting an intense, psychological study with swells of heartache to match Davis’s glorious 2016 Oscar-nominated drama Lion. The filmmaker covers well-trodden ground, taking a scenic tour of the morally divisive issue of AI learning and companionship. Ronan and Mescal bare everything in artfully composed scenes of intimacy but their unabashed physical vulnerability isn’t matched by emotion in the script.

– Kim Hu


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