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Foe

Who, or what, is the foe? If we assume Saoirse Ronan's wistful Hen is the focus of the film, then is it her husband Junior, played by Paul Mescal? Or maybe Aaron Pierre's shifty Terrance, an off-world development rep for a company called Outermore? Possibly the actual foe is humanity, especially those that fucked up the Earth enough to warrant living in space. There are quite a few runners and riders here for the titular prize, but this is in contrast with how many speaking parts fill the screen. Aside from Ronan, Mescal and Pierre, there are voices coming from the radio, as well as diegetic music vocals, and that's your lot, chum.

Foe is as pared back as they come, almost theatrical in tone. There is a lot to unpack here - Artificial Intelligence, the ethics of cloning, relationship breakdown, global heating, gender equality, and probably something else I missed. Ambitious is putting it mildly. I'll describe in broad strokes - Hen and Junior live in a nigh-on uninhabitable dust bowl in the Midwest of the US. The aforementioned radio informs us of worldwide climate disasters and the visuals show this happening around the local area. Cue Terrance with an offer of temporary escape for Junior, to a space station orbiting Earth.

Here's where I began to get Black Mirror vibes, specifically Beyond the Sea, the somewhat nasty episode 3 of the latest series. The central concept is more or less the same, involving a substitute for the absent husband, but where Black Mirror went for misanthropy, this film aims a lot higher, at love and fulfilment. Foe's Aussie director Garth Davis has a bit about him. He cut his teeth on TV shows like Love My Way and Top of the Lake, and has directed a couple of features, including Lion and Mary Magdalene. He has a steady hand on the tiller and it's clear he knows his craft.

The atmosphere and performances are slightly heavy handed to begin with, until the realisation that this is all quite necessary hits near the end. It becomes obvious that something is on the cards, not so easy to pick what though, and I'm happy to say I had it completely wrong. Ronan and Mescal are typically great in what is basically a three-hander but I felt Pierre was a bit too mannered compared to the other leads (not his fault, I guess, coming up against those 27 percenters - the film-improving type, not the nutbags).

Not everyone's warm mug of dystopia but I was on board. There's enough going on here to find your way in, I reckon.

Foe opens Nov 2nd at Luna and Palace cinemas and elsewhere around the country.

See also:

There are echoes of the environmental damage that happens to the Earth in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar (2014) and Ronan broke onto the scene in Joe Wright's Atonement (2007).

SPOILERS IN POD!!

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