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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

Chief Film Critic

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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.

• Garth Davis
• Saoirse Ronan
• Paul Mescal
• Aaron Pierre
• 150 User reviews
• 77 Critic reviews
• 44 Metascore
• 1 win & 1 nomination

Top cast 44

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• Computer Technician 1

• Computer Technician 2

• Tailing Waitress
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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.

User reviews 150

110 minutes i will never get back.

• stevelivesey-37183
• Nov 8, 2023
• How long is Foe? Powered by Alexa
• November 7, 2023 (United States)
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Winton, Victoria, Australia
• Amazon Studios
• Anonymous Content
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• Runtime 1 hour 50 minutes

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20 Oct 2023

It’s hard to make an original marriage drama and it’s hard to make an original dystopian thriller, because somehow both marriage and dystopia feel like an omnipresent fact of daily life at this point. There's an odd parallel between the tension of a long-term relationship and the tension of a dying planet. The looming threat of technology, meanwhile, seems poised to infiltrate our lives in more ways than we can comprehend.

This is the world in which  Foe  makes sense: a sci-fi riff on trust issues, loneliness and what love really means. Paul Mescal plays the gruff Junior, farming land passed down through his family for generations. He and Hen (Saoirse Ronan, on fantastic form) have been distant for a while, as the world around them suffers and hope feels harder than ever. The promise of a new life comes from mysterious stranger Terrance (Aaron Pierre, destined for great things following his beguiling breakout performance here), who informs Junior that he will be sent on a space mission, leaving his wife without him for two years.

Mescal and Ronan are among this generation’s best actors to convey such pain.

What follows could be dismissed as  Black Mirror -esque: could you —  would  you — love an AI version of your partner? But the story, from novelist Iain Reid — who impressed with another complex psychological romantic drama  I’m Thinking Of Ending Things  — earns its twists and ultimate sense of despair. Their doomed relationship is gloomily familiar, despite convincing chemistry and moments of sincere vulnerability. The questions of dwindling passion and what shape loyalty must take are fascinating, and Mescal and Ronan are among this generation’s best actors to convey such pain.

If anything,  Foe  is plagued by the climate it exists in. Surely, few people are  not  worrying about such existential questions — Can I trust you? Can I trust myself? Is it even worth it anymore? Your patience for yet another screen romance to worry about may be drastically tested at this point. Still, if you can face it, this one’s just about worth asking those difficult questions.

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