foe movie reviews

Junior ( Paul Mescal ) and Hen ( Saoirse Ronan ) are not a happy couple. The spark of their early love seems to have withered away in the harsh landscape of the near future. The year is 2065, our planet has been ruined, and people are looking to the sky as a way to survive. But to colonize space, the unholy match of government and private companies will first need an army to help build their new spaceship oasis. A stranger named Terrance ( Aaron Pierre ) arrives to recruit Junior, but not Hen, and given little time to enjoy their days together, the pair faces uncertainty about their relationship and future. Terrance offers them one bit of solace: there will be a flesh-and blood-clone of Junior here on Earth to keep Hen company once the real Junior leaves for space. 

If the premise of “Foe” sounds familiar, that’s because sci-fi has grappled with the idea of robots or artificial beings becoming too real since before Philip K. Dick ’s monumental book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  From the replicants in “ Blade Runner ” (an adaptation of Dick’s novel) to the boy who yearned for his mother in “ A.I. Artificial Intelligence ,” there’s no shortage of examples of looking for signs of life in man-made creations. However, “Foe” stumbles rather spectacularly by leaning more on melodrama than logic and choosing cliche over originality. Aside from rehashing tropes and offering some laughably bad moments, the film accomplishes little. 

Garth Davis (“ Lion ”) both directed “Foe” and co-wrote the screenplay with Iain Reid , the author of the source material, but something must have been lost on the way from the page to the screen. It’s as if the director doesn’t trust his audience to figure out the story, so not only must there be painfully obvious signs, he opens the movie explaining what’s happened. Now that I knew human-like artificial beings existed in this world, I assumed they’d appear at any moment, and well, I guessed correctly within the first few minutes of the movie. Removing the element of suspense in favor of easy answers takes away much of the story’s thrill.

Things do not improve from there. Mescal and Ronan give this film their all, but it’s almost too much. Davis doesn’t seem to realize that languishing his camera on their pained expressions makes scenes feel overwrought and accidentally comical. It’s almost a challenge not to laugh when these awkward close-ups are coupled with dialogue like, “You’re going to hell! This can never be forgiven!” Take, for instance, a close-up of Ronan as she’s trying to pull her face into a smile. She tries repeatedly, but Davis doesn’t cut or allow her the cry her character so badly needs. She just keeps stretching her face into a pained smile like the Joker. This is supposed to be a sad scene, not a descent into madness, but its emotions are mishandled to the point of a punchline. 

It’s odd how “Foe” feels so lifeless, so incurious about what it means to be in a relationship with a facsimile of someone who has fallen out of love with you. A lot of the movie feels off—like the weird, hostile dynamic in Junior’s need to control Hen or the awkward racial dynamic of Junior, a white man, and his rage against Terrance, a Black man from the government/private space company, and what Junior thinks is Terrance’s attraction to Hen, a white woman. While cinematographer Mátyás Erdély reimagines the landscape of Australia into the Midwest of the future, Davis tries to make two Irish actors into Americans, but that doesn’t sound right either. They are supposed to be living in one of the most remote places left, but she works at a sizable diner, and he reports to a rather busy chicken factory? The reason for the government to choose Junior is also vague at best, and if they can make a Xerox copy of his relationship, why couldn’t they send the copy to space? Ah, but “Foe” doesn’t do well under questioning. 

Not even the many sweaty close-ups of the movie’s hot stars tussling in the sheets can replicate life in this strangely inert film. We are forced to watch Mescal and Ronan try their damnedest to convince viewers to root for their characters, only to watch their onscreen counterparts reduced to being treated like Frankenstein’s Monster, forced to suffer in front of an audience. The misplaced earnestness of lines like, “We never dreamed it would experience love,” further emphasizes how this once-promising script was badly executed. Images of pink landscapes and Ronan lounging on an ancient tree in a satin dress look more like the premise of a magazine spread than moments from a story. As AI and climate crises become an ever-growing concern for our reality, more sci-fi movies will likely ask the same question as before: “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Hopefully, they find more interesting answers than “Foe” does.

This review was filed from the 2023 New York Film Festival. “Foe” opens on October 6th in theaters before a Prime Video exclusive launch.

Monica Castillo

Monica Castillo is a critic, journalist, programmer, and curator based in New York City. She is the Senior Film Programmer at the Jacob Burns Film Center and a contributor to  RogerEbert.com .

• Saoirse Ronan as Henrietta
• Paul Mescal as Junior
• Aaron Pierre as Terrence
• Oliver Coates
• Garth Davis

Writer (based on the book by)

Cinematographer.

• Mátyás Erdély
• Peter Sciberras

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‘Foe’ Review: The Space Between

Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal play a farm couple with a less-than-idyllic marriage in the Midwest of the future.

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By Ben Kenigsberg

Set in a future when devastation of the environment has humanity turning to outer space as a homestead, “Foe” presents a spectacle of futility. Not the climate change disaster itself, which is tangential to the plot, but the sight of great actors throwing themselves into this material, as if they were slogging through a Tennessee Williams marathon instead of the equivalent of a distended “Twilight Zone” episode with an aesthetic that might be described as “Dorothea Lange filter.”

The actual source is a 2018 novel by Iain Reid, who wrote the screenplay with the director, Garth Davis ( “Lion” ). The subject isn’t the dystopia, but a marriage. One night in the year 2065, Junior (Paul Mescal) and Hen (Saoirse Ronan), who live on a farm in the Midwest (played by Australia), are approached by a car with “Blade Runner” headlights. The driver is Terrance (Aaron Pierre), who brings news he insists should be seen as positive. (Pierre does not have a role that calls for the consuming physicality of Mescal’s and Ronan’s, but he does have a sly way of asking for a glass of water — a scarce resource — so the request sounds vaguely like a threat.)

Junior has been selected as a candidate for off-world colonization. Nothing will happen just yet, the couple are promised, but of course — to skip ahead to Terrance’s second visit, a year later — something does. Junior’s advancement to the next round means that Terrance will need to move in with them, to probe Junior like a lab rat. Also, don’t worry! While Junior is away, Hen will live with a biological replacement — a replica that has living tissue and Junior’s memories. It’s the high-tech equivalent of leaving a war wife with a photograph, Terrance explains, except that this photograph can live and breathe. All to help their marriage survive, naturally.

The proposal gets a bad laugh, perhaps not entirely intended. Junior doesn’t like the idea of Hen cohabitating with a fleshy facsimile, and he suspects that Terrance is trying to drive a wedge between them. But partly because the narrative reveals information piecemeal, the marriage can only be defined in generic, broadly symbolic terms. (The two wed straight out of school; Junior resents when Hen plays the piano.)

To their great credit, the Irish stars, often loosely clothed and soaked in sweat from the lack of air conditioning, have such presence and chemistry that it’s possible to believe in their intimacy — the pull and tangle of their bodies, their paroxysms of anguish — and even to pretend in the moment that they have full-fledged characters to play.

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‘foe’ review: saoirse ronan and paul mescal are too magnetic to be mired in all this dystopian murk.

Garth Davis directs Amazon's horror-tinged psychological sci-fi feature, also starring Aaron Pierre as a corporate rep conscripting space colonists and sowing division in a young couple's marriage.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

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For reasons never made entirely — OK, even vaguely — clear, the company has chosen scrappy sixth-generation man of the land Junior (Mescal) to be shortlisted for its mission to populate a purpose-built space station that will function as its own planet.

When the unnervingly friendly Terrance rolls up unannounced in his sleek driverless vehicle to the middle-of-nowhere family farmhouse where Junior lives with his wife, Hen (Ronan), the couple is immediately suspicious of his talk of climate migration strategy. Junior refuses to be a part of it, but Terrance tells him conscription means that’s not an option. The stranger also drops the bombshell that Hen will be staying behind during the two years her husband is away.

Some of the film’s most arresting sequences are those in which Erdély’s camera observes Junior and Hen in their workplaces. Given that their scorched-earth property is a farm in name alone, Junior earns a living at a monolithic chicken processing plant that makes factory farming look quaint, while Hen waits tables in a state of dreamy distraction at a diner, a relic of earlier times, not unlike the vintage tunes played on the couple’s stereo turntable at home.

It’s when the nature of that experiment is revealed, and OuterMore’s priorities come into question, that Davis, who co-scripted with Reid, starts losing his grip on the increasingly contrived material. It’s also when the director’s unapologetic embrace of sentimentality — which was an issue for some critics with Lion — becomes cloying and, ultimately, a bit silly.

It doesn’t require a blast of the 1962 Skeeter Davis country-pop crossover hit, “The End of the World,” to figure out that Foe is less a sci-fi investigation of corporate puppet masters or climate disaster or extraterrestrial colonization than it is a dystopian love story steeped in the now inescapable blight of artificial intelligence horror. The people with whom we share our lives often are not the same people we fell in love with, but maybe science can fix that.

Just don’t call it AI, Terrance chastens, as he — spoiler alert — explains about the biological replacement that will be provided to keep Hen company while Junior is gone. “OuterMore has a duty to those left behind,” he tells them with smiling reassurance, stressing that the “new kind of self-determining life form” is not a robot.

But, before you can say “Rick Deckard,” the script ushers in revelations about synthetic replacements operating under the tragic belief that they are human.

In one case, the truth plays out in a cold, clinical unmasking that proves traumatic for everyone involved. In the other, ambiguity reigns, to a degree that’s too muddy to be either intriguing or satisfying. Yes, you can replay the film in your mind and figure out what’s what from clues planted throughout, more or less pinpointing when the big switcheroo (or switcheroos?) took place. But as Foe lumbers on well into its second hour, it becomes obvious there’s barely enough substance here to fill a Black Mirror episode.

The film is saved to some degree by the unstinting commitment of Ronan and Mescal, sweating it out in an environment that’s stifling both physically and psychologically. But the screenplay becomes so overwrought that it smothers any emotional connection to them.

Watching Hen and Junior get it on in a dried-up lake bed, a ravaged crop field or on a rickety cot at home can hold the attention for only so long, no matter how charismatic the actors. Mescal pours himself into a big anguished monologue about the disgust Junior feels toward his fellow humans, but even if it’s plausibly the result of Terrance tightening the screws, the speech comes more from the writers than the character.

There’s plenty of atmosphere in the imagery of Erdély’s cinematography and Patrice Vermette’s bleak production design, and in the eerie sounds of a wide-ranging score by Oliver Coates, Park Jiha and Agnes Obel. But the questions Foe is pondering — about creating human consciousness, connections, even love in artificial replacements — are too predetermined to be provocative. Better to look to a more boldly imaginative consideration of the subject, like Ex Machina , for stimulating answers.

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Hen and Junior farm a secluded piece of land that has been in Junior's family for generations, but their quiet life is thrown into turmoil when an uninvited stranger shows up at their door w... Read all Hen and Junior farm a secluded piece of land that has been in Junior's family for generations, but their quiet life is thrown into turmoil when an uninvited stranger shows up at their door with a startling proposal. Hen and Junior farm a secluded piece of land that has been in Junior's family for generations, but their quiet life is thrown into turmoil when an uninvited stranger shows up at their door with a startling proposal.

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• Trivia The house featured in the movie was re-created to resemble a real house located just outside Westport, Ontario, Canada. Originally, the plan was to film at the actual location near Westport; however, due to actor scheduling constraints, it would have required shooting during the Canadian winter, which was not suitable for the film's storyline. Consequently, the production team opted to construct an exact replica of the Westport house in Australia.

Terrance : We've been working on the next phase of transition for a long time. There's always been several possibilities of human existence in space. The moon, Mars. But with our lands an seas transforming as they are, we decided to built our own space station, our own planet.

Junior : Yeah, what... what's that got to do with us?

Terrance : Right, so I'm here because of the installation. Eh, the first wave of temporary resettlement.

Junior : Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I think I heard about this shit once.

Terrance : You did?

Hen : Looks pretty ridiculous. I mean, why would you spend money up there when you should be fixing thing here?

• Soundtracks It's Raining Written by Allen Toussaint Performed by Irma Thomas Courtesy of EMI Music Publishing Australia Pty Ltd / Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd.

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Foe Reviews

Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan are two of the finest young actors but Foe just doesn't give them their time to shine.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 18, 2024

“Foe” wants to be a delicate look at how love is lost and eventually replaced, possibly by unorthodox stand-ins, but it’s a rather incurious sci-fi feature that squanders its themes and setup in favour of melodrama.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 19, 2024

Garth Davis directs two of the best and hottest young actors in the business, but he cannot create chemistry between them, which deflates the film's romantic vein.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 3, 2024

The story feels like a prequel for “Blade Runner” (1982) meets “The Stepford Wives” (1975) except no human beings were harmed in the making of this film.

Full Review | May 11, 2024

A film bravely, and admirably, committed to the kind of big emotional swing that unfortunately proves to be its undoing.

Full Review | Apr 10, 2024

It's suffocating to the point where you're as desperate for an escape from this scorched Earth misery as these characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 16, 2024

The slow-pace can be frustrating to those looking for more action in their sci-fi, but what you'll find is astute, nuanced performances from two leads, especially Ronan.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 21, 2024

These scenes from a marriage are sometimes evocative, but they don’t tie together.

Full Review | Jan 17, 2024

A story with a particularity that, although it exposes aspects of science fiction, in essence it is a marital drama. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 10, 2024

Limited in its development, Foe drowns in its tedious narrative and missteps. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Jan 8, 2024

Everybody starts acting very strangely, there are spittle-flying arguments and sweaty sex scenes, and none of it makes much sense until the big reveal, when it makes even less sense.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jan 6, 2024

You’d think a robotic replacement for a husband could be a fun and intriguing look into a possible future — with AI taking over and all that. However, not even Academy Award nominees Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal can save this low-key and weak script.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 5, 2024

It's a monotonous experience that leaves you wondering why this film was made in the first place. Steer clear of this dull film.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 5, 2024

Foe tries to be a head trip, but ends up being a head scratcher.

Full Review | Jan 5, 2024

Thorny moral dilemmas intrigue.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5 | Jan 4, 2024

When Foe is finished — when fires both figurative and literal have been extinguished and we know (or at least think we know) what has become of Hen and Junior — we’re simply left wanting more from the experience.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 30, 2023

There is no telling where Foe will take you, but it will be a long, hard fall; either to the pits of despair or desire, ambivalence galore

Full Review | Original Score: 75/100 | Nov 23, 2023

An unsettling combination of sci-fi, horror and intimate drama that is evoked by two terrific young actors and enhanced by lovely work on camera, but the big picture concerns the narrative explores needed strengthening at the writing stage

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 20, 2023

Foe initially presented as a sc-fi but settled into a relationship film where we meet the couple at the fragmented stage. The singular focus was its weakness but the strong performances are without question.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 14, 2023

There was potentially an engaging film in this material, but the fuse burns slowly from start to finish, and nothing ever goes bang.

Full Review | Nov 13, 2023

Foe review: "Paul Mescal delivers a powerful performance in a twisty sci-fi drama"

GamesRadar+ Verdict

Thoughtful, provocative and powerfully acted, Foe is a cunning drama that you’ll want to puzzle over.

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Total Film and SFX are hosting a special reader screening of Foe, including a Q&A with director Garth Davis. The screening will take place on Wednesday 11 October in a Central London location; drinks and canapes will be provided! For your chance to see Foe before release, RSVP here: tinyurl.com/5n7r8su3

"Why does the unknown have to be a burden?" asks Terrance (Aaron Pierre, Brother, The Underground Railroad), the handsome government operative who arrives at the Midwest farmhouse home of Henrietta (Saoirse Ronan) and Junior (Paul Mescal).

It’s 2065, and Junior has been selected (or conscripted) to try out for off-world habitation as part of a climate-migration programme. The planet is dying, and humanity is looking for a way off this rock before the dust storms kill us all. So far, so Interstellar . 

Yet Foe is less interested in what lies beyond than in tensions beneath the surface. For large stretches, the only overt sign of advancement is Terrance’s slick, DeLorean-like car. But it turns out that this future world is also marked by the development of ‘human substitutes’. 

Much to the couple’s initial horror, Terrance suggests Junior’s protracted two-year absence in space will be eased by the arrival of an exact AI copy. "We set out to create consciousness," he beams, seemingly unconcerned by the moral implications. 

Adapted from Iain Reid’s novel by the author himself and director Garth Davis (Lion), this three-hander is at heart a relationship portrait, in which Hen and Junior must deal with issues of jealousy. Meanwhile, Terrance’s presence - like an on-tap marriage counsellor - becomes increasingly unsettling. Ronan and Mescal make for a convincing, volatile couple, although it’s Pierre’s mysterious interloper who steals it. 

Admittedly, the film’s oddly paced, elliptical middle section may leave you scratching your head. But then the twisty third act pulls it all together, sending shivers down the spine.

Foe is released in US cinemas on October 6 and in UK cinemas on October 20. 

James Mottram is a freelance film journalist, author of books that dive deep into films like Die Hard and Tenet, and a regular guest on the Total Film podcast. You'll find his writings on GamesRadar+ and Total Film, and in newspapers and magazines from across the world like The Times, The Independent, The i, Metro, The National, Marie Claire, and MindFood. 

Foe writer and director explain the movie's one big change from the book, and break down Terrance's motivations

Foe author and director talk twists, AI, and how they originally wanted the movie to be nothing like the novel

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Foe review: ronan & mescal are perfect in compelling, visually moving drama.

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• Foe offers a unique take on the failing marriage narrative by incorporating climate change and AI, creating an intimate story that breaks away from typical futuristic elements.
• The film's visuals are both breathtaking and devastating, capturing the desolate landscape and the rekindling of the couple's relationship amidst the surrounding death.
• While Foe lacks in the thriller department and the pacing may feel slow at times, it is captivating to watch, thanks to riveting visuals and strong performances from Saoirse Ronan, Paul Mescal, and Aaron Pierre.

Foe adds a unique layer to the failing marriage narrative. Directed by Garth Davis from a screenplay he co-wrote with Iain Reid, who authored the novel the film is based on, Foe takes into account the consequences of climate change and AI to deliver an intimate story that isn’t par for the course when the aforementioned are involved. You won’t find a stereotypical futuristic city, or openly robotic entities in the story. Rather, the film offers an intriguing, thought-provoking take on marriage. It’s a slow burn and sometimes confusing film with an emotionally gutting twist that, if you’re willing to go along for the mysterious, somewhat strange ride, is worth it in the end.

Set in 2065, Foe follows married couple Hen (Saoirse Ronan) and Junior (Paul Mescal) , who live a quiet life on a secluded farm. By this point, climate change has ravaged the world, running water is hard to come by, and rain is a rare occurrence. With the future not looking any brighter, Hen and Junior’s life is changed forever when they’re approached by Terrance (Aaron Pierre), who has arrived to conscript Junior to live in space for a year. The couple is already struggling in their marriage, and the proposal seems strange at first, but it may also be the best thing to happen to their relationship.

One of Foe’s greatest strengths is its visuals. Cinematographer Mátyás Erdély offers open, sweeping views of a desolate landscape that is simultaneously breathtaking and devastating. When Hen and Junior are out in the open, a sense of freedom permeates their relationship; they may be living in a wasteland, but there’s beauty that lingers in every moment as they take it all in, their relationship being reborn amidst the surrounding death. It’s at times touching and melodic, yet unsettling as we wait for the other shoe to drop at some point.

To that end, Foe isn’t exactly a thriller; it’s lacking in that department. The editing doesn’t heighten the psychological tension and waiting for the twist to be revealed until the final third of the film hinders some of the preceding aspects of the story. We continue waiting for something to happen, especially as the psychological elements begin to take shape and subsequently unravel, but the interspersed scenes featuring marital discussions and jealousy don’t do much to enhance the narrative. And yet, there is something striking about Foe . It takes its time getting to the big twist, but that doesn’t make it any less captivating to watch.

Its visuals are riveting, and Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal’s performances draw us into their world, where their characters are finding each other again despite everything. Whereas other films about failing marriages have been keen to focus on the details of a couple’s downfall, Foe sidesteps this altogether to bring us a reverse love story of sorts. Mescal and Ronan certainly rise to the task, bringing passion, nuance, and emotional devastation to the forefront. Aaron Pierre’s Terrance acts as a foil and a mysterious obstacle to their relationship, and his presence adds to the growing unrest that boils beneath the surface of the central dynamic.

Despite Foe’s shortcomings, it has plenty of heart and something to say. Its visuals are magnetic and Ronan and Mescal give their all in gripping, emotional performances. In Foe’s attempts to have a twist ending, though, it occasionally feels like we’re being tricked. At the same time, the twist adds a layer of depth and intrigue to the story. The film walks a fine line between lethargic and compelling storytelling. Davis struggles to balance the two without losing sight of the point, and yet Foe remains a fascinating look at marriage from a fresh perspective.

Foe is now playing in limited theaters. The film is 110 minutes long and rated R for language, some sexual content, and nudity.

Foe is a sci-fi thriller film by director Garth Davis, based on the novel of the same name. Married couple Henrietta and Junior tend the land inherited by Junior's family until a stranger appears at the door, offering Junior to head to space while leaving Henrietta in the care of a robot during his absence. 

• 3 star movies