Just two weeks ago, we had the release of “The Creator,” which was set primarily in the year 2065 and envisioned a dystopian world in which the delicate and dangerous balance between humans and sentient AI creations was the basis for a pretentious and empty cautionary tale with some interesting ideas — but it was mostly a pile of hokey claptrap.
Now comes “Foe,” which is set primarily in the year 2065 and envisions a dystopian world in which the delicate and dangerous balance between humans and sentient AI creations is the basis for a pretentious and empty cautionary tales with some interesting ideas — but it’s mostly a pile of hokey claptrap.
If only Joshua and Alphie from “The Creator” had crossed paths with Junior and Hen from “Foe”! They could have marveled at the others’ symbolic names and shared Dystopian Sci-Fi Drama notes.
Based on the novel of the same name by Canadian novelist Iain Reid (whose “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” was turned into a surreal and brilliant and trippy film by Charlie Kaufman in 2020) and directed by Garth Davis, “Foe” is set in the generically title-carded “Midwest” of 2065, after some sort of cataclysmic, presumably climate-based global disaster has left Earth on life support, with fresh water, inhabitable land and apparently also bright colors in short supply. (“Foe” was filmed in inland Australia, and cinematographer Mátyás Erdély lenses the arresting visuals in saturated tones of green and brown, perfectly capturing the almost literally scorched-Earth look of the landscape.)
The red-hot Paul Mescal (“Aftersun,” the upcoming “Gladiator 2”) plays the mercurial and brooding Junior, a sixth-generation farmer who lives in his family’s ramshackle house with his wife of seven years, Hen (the always wonderful Saoirse Ronan).
The dynamic between Junior and Ren is explosive and fragile, as they alternate between making love in various locales inside the old-timey farmhouse and on their parched property, and getting into emotionally charged scrapes that usually involve Junior opening another bottle of beer while Ren looks pensively out the window or curls up in bed, lamenting how the magical early days of their union have given way to tedium and tension. Junior works at an enormous chicken processing plant while Hen (hey, is that a chicken reference?) is a waitress at a sad and dreary diner, but they seem to spend most of their time at home, isolated from what’s left of the world, listening to haunting old records, sweating up a storm (air conditioning is a thing of the past) and … waiting.
Which brings us to the AI portion of our program. Early in the story, Junior and Hen receive a late-night visit from the disarmingly polite but rather pushy Terrance (Aaron Pierre), who represents the monolith corporation/government/whatever that now runs the world, and says he comes bearing great news: Junior has been specially selected, i.e., conscripted, to join a mission to help colonize a space station that will become its own planet. (Junior doesn’t seem particularly bright, but he IS an impressive physical specimen who likes to walk around with his shirt unbuttoned, as if he’s in a late 20th century cologne ad.)
Junior will be gone for at least a year — but he’ll still be with Hen, in the form of an AI version of Junior that goes way beyond mere robotics. Junior 2.0 will look and sound exactly like Junior and will in fact believe he IS Junior, complete with Junior’s memories and personality, and his feelings about Hen. This eventually takes us squarely into “Blade Runner” territory, which dashes of “Ex Machina” and “I’m Your Man,” as well as an Anthony Mackie-starring episode of the Amazon Prime series “Solos” as well as the aforementioned “The Creator.”
Slogging along at an interminable pace that feels a half-hour longer than its 108-minute running time, “Foe” is filled with Big Picture imagery (at one point Junior runs TOWARD a burning barn, as the obligatory Symbolic Beautiful Horses gallop to safety), and philosophical questions about what a human would do if presented with a newer, better, more caring and intuitive version of their partner who just happens to not be an actual person. I mean, here’s Hen, filled with poetic regret and yearning for a closer connection to her partner, when along comes an AI copy of the guy who might be better than the original.
Mescal and Ronan are world-class actors (though their respective Irish accents slip through briefly when their voices are raised and emotions are high), and they do a magnificent job of holding our attention for as long as possible, until the plot blows up in a tornado of implausibility, and we’re left thinking the old record player in that farmhouse should be cued up with, “Is That All There Is?”
