Mister Foe presents an intriguing concept. The film takes on societal taboos while delving into emotional responses and psychological reactions to death. You don't have to be a psychologist to enjoy the tactful examination of tough issues.
Hallam (Jamie Bell) seems to have gone off the deep end. His mother committed suicide, but Hallam is convinced that his step mother (Verity, played by Claire Forlani) drugged and killed her. Hallam has withdrawn into his own world where he spends most of his time in a treehouse where he keeps his most treasured possessions. Among those possessions are his journals. The journals detail Hallam's strange fascination with peeping into windows and recording events he sees in his neighbors houses. He even watches his father (Ciaran Hinds) having sex with Verity.
When Hallam's sister moves out of the house, his obsession with Verity and his imagined plot against his mother peak. He ends up running away from his country estate to the city. A chance encounter with a woman who looks like his mother puts Hallam on a new course. The woman, Kate (Sophia Miles) works at a hotel. Hallam stalks the woman and convinces her to hire him as a dishwasher. His progress lands him a promotion and the two end up growing very close. When a jilted former lover tells Kate about Hallam's peeping, she feels violated and fires him. Hallam struggles with his love for Kate and his anger towards his father, Verity, and ultimately...his anger towards his mother. The film examines Hallam's struggles and his process of healing.
Director David MacKenzie and Ed Whitmore adapted this screenplay from a novel written by Peter Jinks. The material appeared to be well researched because it had a strange thread of credibility. While the film was extreme at times and dealt with difficult societal taboos, the writing managed to keep the subject matter tasteful. While there were elements that went beyond belief, the concept of displaced anger and the healing process that follows rang true to me. I felt that the characters, especially the lead, were engaging and contained enough depth to maintain my interest. This film could easily have degraded into something cheap and base. Instead, the writers kept the film fresh, credible and refined.
I enjoyed Jamie Bell in this story. His character had a lot of divergent qualities, which can turn into a muddled mess of inconsistency if it isn't handled properly. Bell managed to take the different facets of his characters, to include the unsavory aspects, and create a likable character that managed to make me care about the outcome. His performance was key in pulling off this character as a successfully enjoyable creep. His chemistry with Sophia Miles was excellent. The two seemed to genuinely gel, in spite of the fact that their relationship seemed like one element of the film that didn't seem entirely credible. Forlani kept me off balance with her delightfully vile step-mother character that may not have been as bad as she originally appears. Her character had enough power to keep the audience off balance regarding the plot. Hinds delivered a stable performance as the flawed but caring father. Together, the casting delivered an incredible story that maintained my interest.
Mister Foe was rated R by the MPAA. The film has quite a bit of sexuality, to include a bit of deviance. The deviant aspects are treated respectfully and given enough balance to be objective. These include, peeping through windows at people having sex or even just nursing babies, sex between the lead character and his step mother and an obsession with a woman that looks like the lead character's mother. These issues were tied together through the theme of the film, making them contextual and delicately handled. There was also some drinking and strong language as well as nudity in the sex scenes. Overall, the subject matter of this film is geared towards mature audiences. I would suggest a mid-teen audience or older.
I was delightfully surprised by Mister Foe. I rented it because it had a high rating and sounded intriguing. I did worry that the film could be a cheap thrills movie and was happy when that did not materialize. The film ended up being somewhat cerebral in many aspects, with an intelligent plot and interesting characters. It was an examination of overcoming pain and loss and the sometimes troubled process of healing. I was impressed. 7.5/10.
