Little Joe **** (2019, Emily Beecham, Ben Whishaw, Kerry Fox, Kit Connor, Lindsay Duncan) – Movie Review

Co-writer/ director Jessica Hausner’s engrossing, unsettling and oddly disturbing posh horror fantasy mystery Little Joe (2019) is extremely smart and clever. It looks smart and its script is clever. The acting direction and production are all remarkably smart. It is also very amusing and entertaining, with its undercurrent of bemused cynicism. It taunts and it teases. Eventually it seems more of a black comedy than a horror or a mystery movie. It defies genres and movie conventions. So, good!

In the main role, Emily Beecham is that little bit beyond excellent as a woman on the verge, single mother Alice Woodard, a seemingly capable and together senior plant breeder at a corporation developing new species of plants. But how capable and together is she? She has engineered a special breed of crimson flowered plant that makes its owner happy. They are in the happiness business. Well, that’s what plants are for, right?

Defying company rules, Alice takes one home as a gift for her teenaged son Joe (Kit Connor). She names it Little Joe but is Alice growing little monsters?

One thing that makes Little Joe so appealing is that is a unique film, nicely creepy and unsettling, though admittedly it is a very distant cousin of The Day of the Triffids, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Village of the Damned and The Stepford Wives. It is in an honourable line of notable movies then. It probably has a niche market of cognoscenti, but it isn’t really arty, and it certainly isn’t ever dull.

Emily Beecham won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019. She is that good. So a lot of kudos. Kerry Fox is excellent too as another woman on the verge, well beyond the verge, actually, the poorly named Bella. She is the would-be whistle-blower, but everyone seems to take her for nuts. Kit Connor is tremendously good too as the creepy kid, all very Damien.

Ben Whishaw is brisk and capable as Alice’s co-worker Chris, who seems to want to be husband to Alice and daddy to Joe. Whishaw gets quite creepy too, in an unusual role for him. Unfortunately, though he gets above-title co-starring billing, it is another support role for Whishaw when he should be having star parts.

David Wilmot plays the company boss, Karl, and yes he’s creepy too, and so is Phénix Brossard as Alice’s co-worker Ric, another shade of creepy. Lindsay Duncan is effective but largely thrown away as Alice’s psychotherapist. She could do with star roles as well.

There is a female protagonist and director, but the film isn’t at all girly. It is, if anything, strongly womanly.

The sets, the clothes, the photography and the effects are all uber-stylish, and the eerie soundtrack is very snazzy too. Katharina Wöppermann’s production design is a wow, and Martin Gschlacht’s Cinematography and Tanja Hausner’s costume design are both very special too.

The US gross is $23,862, and the cumulative worldwide gross is $192,224. Apparently smart and clever are not enough, or rather maybe too much.

Little Joe casts quite a little spell and it’s easy to sit back and succumb to it.

As a European co-production, it is the very kind of commendable and unusual movie we in Britain won’t be getting any more now the Brits have Brexit.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Movie Review

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