The low-brow underworld of film, occupied by Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey and other instantly unpalatable gems, frequently overlaps with those movies considered the worst of the year. Those can be fun in a masochistic way, but the dreary output of serious filmmaking that ends up terrible is almost always worth skipping. Films like the tragic Nat Clifton biopic Sweetwater and Charlie Day’s star-studded disaster Fool’s Paradise both recently joined this category, and Prime Video’s Foe is the latest of the streamer to contribute the cinematic equivalent of essentially nothing to the world.
‘Foe’ Plot Summary
In director Garth Davis’ third film, the beloved Irish actors Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal play secluded farmers upended by the chance for one of them to work on a space station. With two years of absence, the farm’s upkeep will be under the care of an exact duplicate. The strain of the decision turns their quiet lives upside down.
Slow-Burning Indie Artisan Treks Boringly Off the Deep End
Davis, the once-promising debut director of Lion, strayed from success with the misunderstood Mary Magdalene, delivering two films that, side by side, illustrate the fine line between intentional, meditative pacing and tedious overindulgence. Instead of learning from that mistake, Davis goes farther away from energy with Foe, which barely does more than burble without a hint of nuance or original thought. In science fiction, missing those facets is a criminal recipe for failure.
New movie lovers found Foe’s bad reviews quite shocking, considering it rests on the talents of drama superstars Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal. Both recent starts in films like Lady Bird and Aftersun, along with a steadily growing output of mostly well-received films, Ronan and Mescal both have one of their deepest low points with Foe. Visually uninteresting and scripted with the plot resembling an overstretched Black Mirror episode, we hoped for Ronan and Mescal to make something out of Foe. Sadly, their presence hardly enlivens the experience since both leading performers have done much better in recent films.
Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal in ‘Foe’ / Amazon MGM Studios
‘Foe’s Novel-Based Screenplay Damns the Film Adaptation from Minute One
Canadian novelist Iain Reid, better known for his debut novel I’m Thinking of Ending Things, gets involved here as a co-screenwriter instead of letting someone else condense and spice up his dialogue. The Netflix adaptation of his first book (made by Charlie Kaufman) was no easy, brisk watch either, but Foe makes it look like a masterpiece due to the contrasts in the depictions of Reid’s ideas. While I’m Thinking of Ending Things slowly trickles by with a propulsively building dive into more wild ideas than the page could initially contain, Davis and Reid cannot shape a worthwhile meaning out of Foe’s thin concepts and characters.
Putting aside Davis’ yellow-brown palette and the completely unmoving words spoken by the actors, Foe lets down even those with the lowest expectations. As it flows from trite conversation to landscape shot ad nauseam, Foe cannot generate even the most remote care for these characters, and when the attempt at thrills forces its way in, the result is more confusing than compelling. An inferior follow-up to the output of everyone involved, Foe is one of the worst films of late and an easy one to skip.
Foe is streaming now on Prime Video.