Any desire to see two of Ireland’s bright, young things – Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal – finally united on screen will be swiftly drained by Foe, a sci-fi drama desiccated of meaning. They’ve been coupled up here, playing young lovers out on a Midwestern farm. She, Henrietta, wears calf-grazing, tradwife skirts. He, Junior, has on a James Dean uniform (jeans and a white T-shirt, with the sleeves rolled up). Their Terrence Malick, Days of Heaven role-play is rudely interrupted by the arrival of a strange man, Terrance (Aaron Pierre), who informs them that Junior has been hand-picked to colonise space.
It is, in fact, not 1965, but 2065 – fresh water and habitable land are now rare commodities. Humanity has not been able to fix the problems on Earth, so we’ve opted simply to abandon it. Junior will be a canary in the metaphorical space mine, set out into the galaxy to test whether a person can thrive amongst the stars. Henrietta, Terrance adds, will be duly compensated: with an AI substitute for her absentee husband, so fleshy and freethinking that she’ll barely recognise the difference.
