It was only a matter of time before Academy Award nominees and certified Irish hotties Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal acted together. The pair are two of Hollywood’s finest young actors working today and any director pairing them as screen partners would be very smart indeed. And that director is Garth Davis, who helmed Lion in 2016. He’s cast Mescal and Ronan as husband and wife in Amazon’s upcoming apocalyptic thriller, Foe.
Originally a book written by I’m Thinking of Ending Things author Iain Reid, Foe has been adapted for the screen by Reid and Davis. Working on the cinematography is Mátyás Erdély, who also shot A24’s upcoming wrestling epic The Iron Claw.
Who’s going to star in Foe?
Well, Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan, like we just said. As Foe is a gritty little chamber piece, set on an isolated farmstead, it’s mostly just Mescal and Ronan as Junior and Henrietta.
They’ll be joined by Aaron Pierre, who made a memorable impression as the unforgettably named rapper Mid-Sized Sedan in M. Night Shyamalan’s Old. In Foe, Pierre plays Terrance, a mysterious stranger who disturbs Junior and Henrietta’s lives.
What’s Foe about?
Foe seems extremely liable to spoilers – Vanity Fair’s first look at the film teases plenty of twists – but the basic premise is simple. We meet Junior and Henrietta in their home on a rural plain 40 years in the future when they’re joined by Terrance, an outsider who informs them both that Junior is required to travel into space, leaving Henrietta behind.
It’s a bare-bones drama, seldom straying from its lead actors in the farmhouse. The location was so essential to Davis’ thriller that upon discovering a house in Canada that was the spitting image of what Reid described in the book, Davis had it replicated on set in rural Australia by Dune production designer Patrice Vermette.
We don’t know much else beyond that and if you can’t wait to find out, Reid’s book is currently available in all good bookshops for all your spoiler needs.
When will Foe be released?
Foe is slated to open in US theatres on October 6 with a UK release date currently unknown.