During this time of year, with the horribly low temperatures outside, I love nothing more than snuggling under a blanket in my dark living room to watch a newly released film by myself. Doing this is even more fulfilling when I watch a film that holds my attention effortlessly, and that's what happened when I watched Foe.
Adapted from a 2018 novel by Canadian author Ian Reid, Foe was initially released in select theaters in November 2023 but was made available on Amazon Prime earlier this month. So everyone can watch it at home now. Foe is a strange experience, because it doesn't fit nicely into one or two genres. It's also strange because it remains comfortably mysterious making it difficult to predict how the story will unfold.
Set in an ominous future with scarce resources and a United States destroyed by catastrophic weather, a husband and wife live together in a secluded farmhouse growing vegetables and rationing water. Their peaceful life together is shaken when a government employee arrives unexpectedly to invite the couple to participate in a program to live in space. But only one of them gets to go to space, leaving the other spouse to stay home with a manufactured, robotic companion.
Foe is a fascinating blend of science-fiction, love story, and psychological thriller which works well for the director Garth Davis since he directed four episodes of the dark, 2013, murder mystery series, Top of the Lake and the touching, real-life, family drama, Lion (2016). Foe is a quietly exciting, partly art house, science-fiction film that isn't about the wonders of technology or the elaborate composition of a mechanized alien world (like Minority Report from 2002 or Alita: Battle Angel from 2019).
This version of sci-fi looks inward at the emotional repercussions of future advancements in science and the ever-deepening relationships between humanity and electronic invention; similar to the 2021 films Swan Song (with Mahershala Ali) and After Yang (with Colin Farrell). Most of this film is comprised of confining discussions between husband and wife inside their sweaty farmhouse with colorful shots of an eerily vast landscape outside...devoid of people, buildings, or movement. In only two moments does this film show the giant space station floating above the earth. Laser guns and fast cars are not features of this future, and that's partly why Foe feels so uncommon and affecting.
The performances of Irish actors Saoirse Ronan (Little Women, 2019) and Paul Mescal (Aftersun, 2022) are so well measured between impulsive volatility and weary suspicion, that their dialogue easily keeps this film grounded in a reality deceptively similar to our own. Of the three main characters, you're not totally sure who is being their true self, and that's partly why my eyes were fixed on the screen for this one. Please don't count this film out for a fulfilling evening. It will remind you to not take for granted the relationships you have.
