Foe, Garth Davis, 2023

The great existential questions knock on the door on any given day and are always a watershed between a before and an after with no possibility of return. An epiphany to see in another light who or what has always been before our eyes. In the not too distant future, the possibility of a human substitute seems to be a solution to save a marriage in the event of a long-term separation of one member of the couple.

A humanoid artificial intelligence that learns, to replace at a fixed time, to give continuity and simulate closeness in distance. Well, if the form, habits, attitudes and indeed intelligence can be replicated and duplicated so that a status quo is guaranteed, so that nothing changes, in the same way feelings cannot be cloned.

Those arise from a shared experience, from a relationship, from a common path, from a crossing of events. For each of us there is an identity prior to and a subsequent identity to the encounter with the other, in the time of the encounter it is the relationship that creates that us in which each is himself despite being another different from himself and another if same. The emotional exchanges between the parties, the sensations, the feeling and the feeling of each other are the prerogative of a sensorial and experiential dimension that changes when even a single and very small detail changes. Feelings are always unique, exceptional, singular and extraordinary feelings. On the level of feeling, it is not enough to appear but it is necessary to be. And when you are, you are also irreplaceable.

Foe is one of those intelligent films that stimulate reflections and diatribes on great ethical, moral and existential questions that do not immediately find an answer and above all do not find just one. The arguments for the thesis, for or against, must necessarily consider different points of view and therefore different scenarios.

Films like this are necessarily supported by performances that cannot be less than brilliant like those of Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal.