Irish actors are definitely on a roll at the moment. After the disturbing Saltburn, in which Irishman Barry Keoghan intrigues as much as he disturbs, it’s Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan’s turn to make a splash. In fact, the duo has just signed a most striking film, just released on the Amazon Prime platform. Entitled “Foe”, the film is an auteur SF. An exciting feature film, with a focus on psychology rather than fantasy. Explanations.
2065. Planet Earth is dying from the ravages of climate change. Cities are overpopulated, the land is barren, and humanity is turning to the conquest of space to ensure its survival.
In the Midwest, Junior (Paul Mescal) and Hen (Saoirse Ronan) are a married couple living on a small, isolated farm away from the hustle and bustle of the world.
One day, a member of the government named Terrance knocks on the door with terrible news: Junior has been drawn to join a large experimental space station orbiting the Earth. Although Junior protests, he has no choice: this decision has more to do with conscription than the freedom to say no.
The government men then propose the unthinkable to the couple: send Junior into space, while creating a custom-made copy of Junior to help Hen overcome her loneliness.
Faced with an impossible choice, the couple must fight to preserve their love.
Co-written and directed by Garth Davis, the film “Foe” is unsettling from the very first minutes. Slow-moving, in camera and carefully capturing each character’s attitude, the feature is far from the usual sci-fi movie standards.
Forget the blockbuster-style scenes, with their breathtaking space vistas, state-of-the-art equipment and thunderous action scenes. Because you won’t get any of that.
Quite the contrary.
“Foe” is more of an auteur film than the usual Hollywood blockbuster. It focuses on the period before Junior left for space… abandoning space scenes in favor of Midwestern landscapes ravaged by the consequences of climate disruption.
At first glance, this is a puzzling choice, but one that’s well worth considering.
For this cinematic UFO remains a masterpiece in its own right. It places us in the not-too-distant future, where the IPCC’s predictions seem to have taken on an even more tangible reality. A few images depict a bloodless Midwest, where dead trees and dry earth stretch as far as the eye can see… Where the devastation seems total.
Pests invade the local ecosystem, and people are forced to raise their livestock in terrifying skyscraper farms, while growing their oilseed rape using chemical technologies.
So much for the futuristic setting. That’s all we’ll be seeing.
No. Because what counts in Garth Davis’ cinema is his study of characters. We witness the bleak daily life of Junior and Hen, who seem to have to endure the global context in which everything around them seems to be dying.
Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan in Foe
In love, but exhausted, the couple has its ups and downs. But love is there.
Everything changes with the arrival of the film’s third and only other character: Terrance, played by Aaron Pierre. When he tells the couple that Junior has been conscripted into space, their world is turned upside down.
From then on, Terrance becomes a voyeur, and the couple reveals a whole new range of feelings and emotions.
Conflicting and confusing thoughts invade their minds, and the idea of Junior being replaced by an AI-driven alter ego will push them close to the brink…
The plot, fascinating but sometimes too slow, is an excellent way for Garth Davis to question our society today.
The scenes are thought out to the millimetre, asking questions about couples, with their unspoken feelings and complexities, about otherness, ego and love, and about the impact of AI on human beings.
He also points the finger at humanity’s perversion, unable to stop the climatic and environmental scourge it has itself caused by its excesses.
The subjects tackled are reminiscent of the Black Mirror series, which also prefers to focus on subjects rather than blockbusters.
Foe does a marvellous job of it, proving that once again, a film’s success lies more in the power of its themes than in its grandiloquent special effects.
What’s more, the director was able to call on the exceptional talents of Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal, two hugely successful Irish actors who are currently the talk of Hollywood (and we can’t wait to see Paul Mescal in the lead role in Gladiator 2). It has to be said that their duet works to perfection: their interpretations of great depth and subtlety literally carry the plot.
In it, they reveal to the spectator-viewer all the components of the couple, from their noblest feelings to their darkest twists and turns.
It’s a fascinating performance that encourages us to see it through to the end, despite the film’s sometimes tedious languor.
A must-see on Amazon Prime!
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