Foe: Saoirse Ronan to star in mind-bending sci-fi thriller for Amazon

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Amazon Studios is in talks to pick up the worldwide rights to Foe, a sci-fi thriller Garth Davis (Lion) will be directing from a screenplay he wrote with author Iain Reid, based on Reid's novel of the same name. (You can pick up a copy of Foe at THIS LINK.) Saoirse Ronan is signed on to star in the film, which is described as "a taut, sensual, psychological mind-bender" set in 

the near future, where corporate power and environmental decay are ravaging the planet. Junior and Hen are a young couple married seven years and living a solitary life on their isolated farm. One night, a stranger named Terrance knocks on their door, bringing news that throws their lives into turmoil: Junior has been randomly selected to travel to a large, experimental space station orbiting Earth. The most unusual part? Arrangements have already been made so that when he leaves, Hen won’t have a chance to miss him, because she won’t be left alone — not even for a moment. Hen will have familiar company that pushes her to make a life-changing decision.

This sounds quite interesting to me.

Ronan will be playing Hen. She's joined in the cast by Paul Mescal as Junior and LaKeith Stanfield as Terrance. They have some time to prepare for their roles, as Foe isn't expected to start filming until next January. Filming will take place in Australia.

Davis had this to say about the project: 

I’ve been on the hunt to do something in sci-fi, it was always on my bucket list, and also to find material I could make an actor’s piece with a Cassavetes-ian level of performance. I read Foe and could not put it down. It’s incredibly suspenseful, very moving and dealt with sci-fi in a most grounded way that spoke to where we are heading as a society, with a lot of the questions we all have, explored in a profound way. And the love story just broke my heart, this story of self-determination, fighting for the things that are most precious in our lives and reminding audiences that this time we have here is precious and the way we treat each other is the way we need to be treating the planet. Foe was just a bull’s-eye, for me."

He also commented on the cast: 

The point of the movie is that corporate power and environmental decay is literally eating away at the natural world, not just the environment but from a human point of view, it’s eating away at society and taking away why we’re meant to be here and what connects us. We’re losing our self-determination and vibrancy. What I love about Saoirse is, you see her on screen and she is just so unfiltered and alive. She represents to me all the things we need to protect in the world. Putting her in the belly of this suspenseful and uneasy story is the whole point. What she represents is precious, she’s an empath. She fights for the things we all should be fighting for. I was looking for an actress who just had those qualities, and that beauty.

Paul Mescal, he is just a normal guy and you believe he’s married to her and that they come from the same part of the world, which they do in reality. I buy them as a rural couple. 

Then we have Terrance, who arrives in the middle of the night. It was really important to get him right. LaKeith is for me unbelievably exciting. Terrance is the conductor of the narrative, the one coming into their lives and changing them forever. How do we do that in a way that is not overtly sinister or calculating? LaKeith has this beautiful charm. You’d want to let him in the door and you’d want to know him, but as the story takes off, there is a mystery, a vulnerability. He embodies all that stuff in his eyes. When I spoke to him, he was very fascinated by our relationship with technology and eager to explore that in this story."

Davis is producing the film through his I Am That shingle. Kerry Kohansky-Roberts of AC Studios and Emile Sherman and Iain Canning of See-Saw Films are also producing. Reid and Samantha Lang serve as executive producers, while Libby Sharpe is co-producer. Foe is an Anonymous Content Studios production.

This is the second time a Reid novel is being turned into a film. He also wrote the novel that Charlie Kaufman's Netflix movie I'm Thinking of Ending Things was based on.