Prime Time: Foe (2023)

It is the future. Stuff has happened that isn’t great, although it also doesn’t seem to be anything plunging the world into a violence-filled apocalypse. A married couple, Hen (Saoirse Ronan) and Junior (Paul Mescal), are trying to move through what seems to be a slightly strained and difficult period while they continue to work on the land that surrounds their remote farmhouse. Things aren’t helped by the arrival of a stranger (Terrance, played by Aaron Pierre) who is tasked with preparing them for a major change in their living arrangements.

Although I hadn’t heard many glowing notices for Foe, there were/are one or two people who decided to champion it as an unfairly-neglected work. Considering the talent of the two main leads, I decided to check it out. I wish I hadn’t bothered. This is massively disappointing, with a cast stuck working with highly unoriginal material and a lack of any real vision.

I would be more forgiving if this was the first film from director Garth Davis, but it isn’t. He made a splash a few years ago with the celebrated Lion, but this is a very different beast (no pun intended). Here he adapts a book by Iain Reid, with Reid himself also assisting in the move from page to screen, but neither writer is able to do enough to flesh out the backgrounds of the main characters or keep the sense of a bigger world turning around them. If you want a well-done character study then this isn’t it, I’m afraid. Then again, if you want some smart sci-fi, this is also lacking in that department. So it is hard to think of anyone who will be fully satisfied by this.

Ronan and Mescal are still both very watchable, overcoming the script to make their characters more interesting and sympathetic than they otherwise would be. They are the big draw, and I suspect this would have been unbearable with lesser stars in the main roles. As for Pierre, he is fine. His character adds tension and intrigue, but he also highlights the many problems that litter the screenplay, from dialogue exchanges to the entire structure of the thing.

I am sure everyone involved in this had good intentions, and there are choices made that I can appreciate even as I continued to dislike how I saw the film was playing out, but this isn’t worth your time. In fact, it would work far better as a minimally-staged play, something that keeps the focus on the performances instead of the tired ideas at the heart of it all. Don’t rush to see this film. But if it does get the stage treatment at any point, do give that a go.

4/10

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