Little Joe Review
Plant-based arthouse blooms with mixed results. ★★★☆☆
Imagine another remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, this time with an abundance of arthouse aesthetics, and you’re not far off from Little Joe, Jessica Hausner’s pretty but frustrating English language debut feature.
The plot centres around Alice (Emily Beecham), a skilled and dedicated plant breeder whose latest creation, Little Joe, has been specifically engineered to make its owners happy. The plant appears to be a roaring success, but Alice soon begins to notice that everyone around her, particularly her young son (Kit Connor) is beginning to act a little strange. Is this change just a coincidence, a by-product of Alice’s distant and workaholic nature? Or is Little Joe actually beginning to take over?
Like the titular plant, Little Joe is a pretty picture. Hausner is a skilled visual storyteller with a distinctive style that works well to establish an aura of creeping dread that may or may not be real. The film’s colour palette is striking, with strong reds and magentas, sharply contrasting with greens and calmer tones. It all clearly means something, but what exactly I’m not sure. I’ll have to leave that to smarter, or more keenly interested, people.
What works best, besides Beecham’s quietly nuanced performance that saw her scoop the Best Actress award at that year’s Cannes, is the slowly simmering feeling of ambiguity. Uncertainty shrouds Little Joe, big question marks building to unrestrained paranoia that lingers in the air for much of the picture.
Is it science fiction? Is it horror? Or is it actually a genius meditation on one woman’s inability to find balance?
Sadly I must be immune to Hausner’s manufactured charms. Too often I found myself frustrated by a growing feeling that Little Joe’s substance had been compromised by its stylish approach. Too many scenes felt unnecessary or unnecessarily drawn out, framed to evoke a specific style than to actually tell a story.
Even more egregious was its music, initially an ominous drone that set the tone, eventually overplayed to the effect of fingernails on a chalkboard. The addition of the sound of barking dogs was an odd decision, more likely to draw confused chuckles, worsen migraines and nullify its paranoid haze.
Worth a watch for anyone looking for an artsy-fartsy mindfuck. But anyone else should opt for its original inspirations, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Wes Anderson, therapy, and, maybe, a couple of quaaludes.
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