Is a replicant deserving of love? The sci-fi story that’s almost too difficult to unravel

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FOE ★★★

(M) 110 minutes

In the opening moments of Australian director Garth Davis’ Foe, Henrietta (Saoirse Ronan) is in tears. There are any number of things that could be making her cry. It’s 2065, the world is in a desolate state and Hen and her husband, Junior (Paul Mescal), are in one of its worst parts – a dried-out stretch of the American Midwest where they live on what was once a farm.

Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan play a husband and wife confronting an unknown future in Foe.

Junior has a job at a chicken processing factory, and she’s a waitress at a diner. There is no one else around to provide a cup of tea and a bit of light relief.

But Hen is weeping over none of these things. It’s Junior who bothers her and the thought that their marriage is fast deteriorating. For reasons she can’t understand, he’s moody and withdrawn and whatever is wrong, he won’t talk about it. She’s still crying when a strange car draws up outside.

Foe is an adaptation of a much admired – and much discussed – sci-fi novel by Canadian writer Iain Reid. It’s a puzzle of a book about the unfathomable implications of artificial intelligence, and elaborate interpretations of its finer points abound on the internet. Reid collaborated with Davis on the film’s screenplay and, apart from switching the focus from Junior to Hen, it cleaves fairly closely to the original. In other words, it’s fiendishly difficult to unravel.

The car at the couple’s front door has brought Terrance (Aaron Pierre), a weirdly effusive character who works for a government agency that is sending people into space for two years at a time with a view to setting up a space colony. Without his knowledge, Junior has been put on a long list of candidates for this excursion and Terrance has arrived to let him know what a great opportunity he’s being given.

Junior is understandably reluctant to embrace this generous offer, but he makes only a weak and half-hearted protest, for Terrance’s relentlessly upbeat sales pitch has a sinister edge. In fact, he’s a thoroughly creepy presence.

At this point, the narrative could go in any direction. Are we going to jump two years and explore the effect of Junior’s absence on the couple’s marriage on his return? Of course not. Reid and Davis aren’t remotely interested in anything so simple. The kernel of the film’s theme is wrapped up inside the second part of Terrance’s proposition. While Junior is away, a replicant fashioned in his image will take his place in the house and in his bed. But first, Terrance will have to find out everything he can about Junior’s relationship with Hen so the replicant can be programmed accordingly.

On the plus side, Davis has no trouble drumming up the sense of discombobulation necessary for this unsettling premise to draw you in. Can a replicant love, suffer and be deserving of our sympathy? These are the questions at the confused heart of the film, and Mescal and Ronan are convincing as a couple whose lives are being hijacked by forces beyond their control. Furnished with relics of happier times gone by, the farmhouse is oppressive enough, but Davis works too hard to ramp up the levels of mystification.

There can be precious little difference between an enigma and a muddle, and we’re not too far into the action before the two begin to merge. By the time the film reaches its climactic plot twist, its emotional impact has been blunted by all the unexplained incidents and accidents that have cropped up along the way.

Foe is released in cinemas on November 2.

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