Even at a festival like the BFI London Film Festival, it’s possible to enter most of the sessions without any prior knowledge of the premise, cast, screenwriter, director, or even the reception of the movie at other film events. Ironically, Foe is precisely the opposite case, and there would inevitably be a certain pre-viewing curiosity in understanding what caused such a brutally negative initial reaction, leading to low expectations that could even have benefited the general opinion in London… Unfortunately, it ended up being the worst, most likely scenario…

Foe Critique

Also Read: Poor Things Venice Film Festival Review

 

Foe is directed by Garth Davis (Lion) and based on the same-titled book by Iain Reid, who co-wrote the screenplay with the former. I mentioned in a recent review of Fingernails that I tremendously appreciate high-concept sci-fi narratives, so this movie starring Saoirse Ronan (Little Women), Paul Mescal (Aftersun), and Aaron Pierre (Old) should have started, in theory, with the right foot. The futuristic premise calls for the “emigration” of humanity to colonies outside of planet Earth, with artificial intelligence replacing the “lucky” ones selected for space travel with physically identical, fully conscious copies of themselves.

Honestly, the incessant discussion around the pros and cons of AI quickly became redundant and monotonous, losing more and more meaning no matter how many films try to create innovative narratives around the topic. However, Foe manages to surprise everyone… not in a positive manner. And it’s no small feat, as we find ourselves facing one of the worst movies of the year. Without a doubt, the clumsy, messy, thematically inconsistent screenplay stands out from any other narrative, structural, or technical element. The cast is innocent, but not even the dedicated performances can save this disaster.

There aren’t many storytelling methods that leave me deeply frustrated, but the constant, unnecessary over-explanation of literally every single plot point or character action, whether through dialogue, narration, text, or visual details, always feels borderline disrespectful. Obviously, if the premise focuses on replacing people with robots and there are only three characters, it’s more than safe to predict that everyone is assuming at least one of them will not be human. Foe intentionally wishes to generate doubt in the viewer, but not only does it completely ruin any supposedly impactful revelation with an opening text highly indicative of the answer, but the non-linear structure – whether deliberate or not – doesn’t help to captivate the audience.

As the story unfolds, more logical questions emerge, and, towards the end, these are simply ignored. The sudden time jumps are yet another distracting element, and Foe takes longer to actually close out than The Return of the King, possessing infinite endings that add nothing to each other, repeating information already acquired by the audience over and over again. The remaining technical aspects aren’t distinguished enough to help with a potentially interesting audiovisual experience, but the “icing on the cake” is one of the messages conveyed during the third act.

Accidentally or not, Foe argues that AI is more efficient in intimate relationships than a human being, which contradicts several narrative points of the film, namely the fact that the company responsible for such replacement doesn’t foresee that the human partner will fall in love with the robot. If there are so many arguments in favor of technology being superior and adapting exponentially, how is it possible not to foresee this result? Are all humans simply incapable of changing? Too many questions are either left unanswered or with contradictory responses throughout the movie, in addition to banal, extremely shallow world-building. How did they manage to hire such a talented cast…

In Conclusion

Foe presents one of the messiest screenplays of the year, filled with incessant, unnecessary explanations through numerous narrative and visual methods, abruptly confusing time shifts, absurdly devoid of any sort of impact, and a strange message, to say the least, about the superiority of AI in human intimate relationships. At just under two hours, it manages to slowly drag itself to a multiple-ending conclusion, none capable of delivering any relevant information that wasn’t already given beforehand. The cast does the best they can, but it’s way too far from enough to rescue a movie doomed to leave its audience underwhelmed.

2/10

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