FOE** - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 8

Another day, another festival film that is well-acted and directed but where the story isn’t really worth the candle.  Because make no mistake, whatever the advertised description, FOE isn’t really a sci-fi film about a dystopian climate-ravaged near-future:  it’s actually a relationship drama about a bad marriage.  Which is not to say that you can’t make a compelling film about a bad marriage - just look at Noah Baumbach’s 2019 festival favourite MARRIAGE STORY, or pretty much the entire oeuvre of Ingmar Bergman. But FOE, and PRISCILLA, and MAESTRO, and FINGERNAILS, are all basically bad marriage dramas and none of them are compelling.

So let’s start with the sci-fi conceit. Writer-director Garth Davis (LION) has no track record in writing sci-fi, and maybe no interest in writing sci-fi, and it shows. He is, however, adapting a book by Iain Reid which may get into this in more depth. What we get on screen is the story of a woman, Hen, who has fallen out of love with her husband Junior, then falls in love with his AI Cylon replacement instead.  This is a tale an old as time, or at least as old as Martin Guerre (better known to western audiences as that Richard Gere film SOMMERSBY).  If you want to get into the nuances of how this might play out with AI alternates, then I would once again urge you to watch Ronald D Moore’s Battlestar Galactica remake.  By contrast, FOE isn’t really interested in mining those nuances.

Okay, so grant the movie the grace of parking the sci-fi conceit to one side.  How does it play as straightforward relationship drama?  We are on stronger ground here thanks to strong lead performances from two very talented actors: Saoirse Ronan (LITTLE WOMEN) as Hen and Paul Mescal (ALL OF US STRANGERS) as Junior.  But when two people drift apart simply through over-familiarity and isolation - when there is no actual dramatic event that brings them into free-fall (not even in this sci-if conceit) then what are we left with? Two hours of mild bickering and mild make-up sex.  It just ain’t enough to fill a near two-hour running time.

This is all a tremendous shame as the crew is as impressive as the cast. I loved cinematographer Matyas Erdely’s sepia-toned interiors and drought-scape exteriors.   I really loved the score by Oliver Coates, Park Jiha and Agnes Obel. In fact, it’s the score more than anything in the writing that reminds us we are in a sinister, dystopian sci-fi film.  I also really loved some of Garth Davis’ visual flourishes, when they sporadically occur. There’s a great scene near the end which, without spoiling it, involves a vacuum and plastic, that was absolutely visually arresting. It just wasn’t enough to save me from boredom.

FOE has a running time of 110 minutes and is rated R. It opens in the USA on October 6th and in the UK on October 20th.

MARY MAGDALENE

MARY MAGDALENE is a truly beautiful, nuanced, finely acted and imagined film that genuinely does something new with a hackneyed story. It stars Rooney Mara as Mary Magdalene - not a reformed whore and temptress of popular myth, but a thoughtful, caring woman who has the fortitude to escape an arranged marriage to follow an inspirational leader.  She becomes his companion and befriends the apostles - but there are no leering gazes or temptations. Rather a quieter tension about interpreting Christ's message and legacy.  To Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor), she is a distraction. His aim is worldly power in Jerusalem. For Mary, the meaning of Christianity is compassion and personal kindness. Somewhere in this miscommunication is a tragic and awful misunderstanding on the part of Judas.

Director Garth Davis (LION) has created a quiet film of great passions with a studious script by Helen Edmundson and Phillippa Goslett taking back seat to imaginatively created moments. Early on we see a terrified Mary exorcised in a lake at night by her father and brother because she refuses to marry. It's a stunning imaginative invention.  Later, when Christ (Joaquin Phoenix) wrestles with a possessed man he seems himself in reflection. And is there anything as heartbreaking as Tahar Rahim's Judas on his knees begging Christ to resurrect his dead daughter? All of this carries an emotional weight because it stands in contrast to the muted dun-coloured palette of Greig Fraser's photography, the simplicity of the exterior landscapes, and the austerity of Johan Johannsson's score. But at the moments when Davis uses CGI and set pieces - he is also superb. The rendering of turn of the millennium Jerusalem from a distance is quite breath-taking - as is his evocation of a temple crowded with people, money-lenders and blood sacrifices. 

MARY MAGDALENE has a running time of 120 minutes. 

LION - BFI LFF 2016 - Day 9

LION is an emotionally intense human interest story that comes complete with lovely cinematography.  However, a straightforward structure, slack pacing and ho-hum soundtrack prevent it from being truly great, as opposed to a well-made tear-jerker.

The film is based on the memoirs of Saroo Brierley. He was born in a small north Indian town in the early 80s, but through a twist of fate was separated from his family and ended up on a train to Calcutta, 1600km away.  Unable to speak Bengali, or even knowing the name of his hometown, the boy becomes one of many homeless children, and only narrowly escapes a predator to end up in an equally brutal state orphanage. But a kindly social worker intervenes and arranges for him to adopted by a white Tasmanian family, where it appears that he lived a very happy childhood.  However, when Saroo goes to university he finally meets people from India, and this triggers a wave of memories and a desire both to find his birth family, but not to hurt his adoptive parents.  And so begins a needle in the haystack search for a faint memory of a train station with a water tank, without even knowing if he'll find his family at the end of it.