'Foe' review: A dreary mess, despite intriguing premise, great cast

WHAT IT'S ABOUT In the sci-fi movie “Foe,” set in the near-future, the Earth has been sapped of its natural resources. Amid the environmental carnage, a young couple tries to hold onto a dying farm somewhere in the Midwest.

But life changes in an irrevocable way for Hen (Saoirse Ronan) and Junior (Paul Mescal) with the sudden arrival of Terrance (Aaron Pierre), a representative of a company introducing a space station settlement that might save humanity.

Junior has been selected via a lottery as one of the people who must settle this new place, leaving Hen behind with an AI-generated clone of her husband.

The picture is directed by Garth Davis (“Lion”) and an adaptation of a novel by Iain Reid. Reid and Davis co-wrote the screenplay.

MY SAY The movie has an intriguing premise, rife with contemporary resonance in its depiction of a planet bled dry and artificial intelligence playing an outsized role in the fallout.

It looks the part, with the farm house setting surrounded by acres of dead trees, now just trunks dotting the landscape, as the water runs muddy and red. It's got the casting right; Ronan ("Lady Bird") long ago proved herself to be one of the better actors around and Mescal last year earned an Oscar nomination for his work in “Aftersun.”

And yet despite all that, “Foe” is a dreary mess, a slog through one stagy sequence after another with no end in sight.

It plays like a lesser “Black Mirror” episode more than its own thing, the sort of high-concept production that lacks the wherewithal to follow through on the potential.

That's in part because it barely engages with this vision of society writ large. Don't expect any broader context or perspective beyond the farm. The topical themes like AI and global warming get evoked, played with, and then just mostly sit there, with preciously little illumination.

The focus remains persistently inward, on the frayed relationship between Junior and Hen, and the disruption created by Terrance. The chamber piece approach might have worked were they not some of the least interesting people imaginable: mopey, angry, and prone to mind-numbing ruminations. It's not Ronan's fault, or Mescal's, or Pierre's. They're playing abstractions rather than characters.

In fact, the writing skews toward the abstract to such an extent that the drama becomes hopelessly muddled. The most adept filmmakers at this sort of philosophical sci-fi find ways to embed their big ideas in a direct and digestible framework; this movie goes so far in the other direction that there are entire scenes that simply float there, without any clarity. There's a line between being smart and smug that the movie crosses, routinely.

It's suffocating to the point where you're as desperate for an escape from this scorched Earth misery as these characters. Fortunately, you've got a remote with an off button.

BOTTOM LINE Even sci-fi buffs should stay away.