[imagesource:primevideo]

The world is dying and so is the marriage between Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal in Foe.

Sitting just behind Prime Video’s juggernaut Saltburn, this unusual sci-fi drama is already the second most popular movie on the streamer according to FlixPatrol.

Foe came out in cinemas back in October 2023, but you may have missed it as it was a limited release, in 85 UK screens, according to ShortList.

The melodramatic sci-fi psychological thriller is from Lion director Garth Davis, adapting the novel of the same name by Iain Reid, who also wrote I’m Thinking of Ending Things, which became one hell of a Netflix movie in the hands of filmmaker Charlie Kaufman.

The gist of Foe is that Hen and Junior, played by Ronan and Mescal, are a married couple working on a farm back on a climate-ravaged Earth in 2065 when Junior is offered work on a space station. Instead of granting Hen a ticket up into the stars, the couple is offered an AI replacement for Junior while he is away. As part of the AI training process, Junior and Hen have to divulge uncomfortable truths about their marriage, which is where things get interesting.

Check out the trailer:

The reviews aren’t excellent but they do all say that Ronan and Mescal’s Oscar nominee-worthiness is evident in how they work their tails off to try to transcend this “garbled and ineffective” screenplay, per Decider, making sure Foe isn’t as dry and barren as its setting.

[source:shortlist]