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Excellent but underrated film

Absolutely Fantastic

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Maybe I just wasn't intelligent enough to get this movie, but to me, Mister Foe was just weird and twisted. Jamie Bell (who I'll always associate with Billy Elliott) was phenomenal as Hallam Foe, a seventeen year old voyeur, whose mother had recently committed suicide. Unable to cope, Hallam leaves for the big city, where he finds a woman who looks eerily similar to his mother and Hallam starts spying on her. I get that this film was supposed to be coming of age, sophisticated, and meaningful, but honestly, I just found it creepy. The film was choppy, extremely slow, and just when you thought something was going to happen, it doesn't. In Mister Foe, Jamie Bell really does show just how good an actor he has become. Aside from that, this movie is just weird.

Awkward and engrossing movie that overcomes its unlikable lead by making him confused and relatable. It's a very difficult performance Bell has to pull off in this movie. He must present himself as a mentally fractured peeping tom whilst all the while leading us along a romantic path. The performances and characterizations are key here. Forlani isn't exactly the evil stepmother from many movies, but she is able to carry a certain stench of menace. Paired with Bell's confusion and creepiness, it adds up to more of an emotional mystery than a murder one. In many ways it's a wonderful coming of age tale, that delicately approaches the mind of a teenager. It bridges the gaps between anger, madness, and danger. At times it tries to be a bit too hip, with it's constant twangy soundtrack, but at least it works nicely with the dull but mesmerizing cinematography.

David Mackenzie's follow-up to the brilliant Young Adam wants to be a feel-good underdog story of a lonely voyeur who is trying to confront some psycho-sexual issues with his dead mother. It wants to be gritty, realistic, and mysterious. At the same time, it wants to be funny and nonjudgmental of its disturbed lead as he establishes himself as an adult.To meet this end, the film tries hard to be youthful. Its poster has hand-drawn letters looking like that of Juno. Its original soundtrack is comprised of fast-paced indie rock which tries to convince the audience that Hallam is OK; just a little misguided. But strangely the film is anything but youthful.Like Young Adam this film's central mystery concerns a drowned woman- in this case Hallam's mother. Young Adam keeps its mystery quiet, contemplative, and paced well enough to hit you with the truths as they come. Hallam Foe does the opposite. It foregrounds its character's psychosis so clearly and so early that he never really does anything outside his expected parameters. The opening scene is Hallam in his treehouse watching his sister fooling around with her boyfriend. Hallam swiftly interrupts, asserting his presence in the household. Here we see everything that Hallam will do for the rest of the movie.The mystery surrounding his mother's drowning is whether it was suicide or murder by his father's girlfriend. The audience can never really trust Hallam because, besides being creepy, we think his obsession has led him close to insanity. This hindered the mystery element for me because Hallam is too sporadic to be relatable. Right when he's found some clues that would support his claim he runs away from home, at first it appearing to be looking for the police. Then he gets extremely sidetracked by a girl who resembles his mother, which frustratingly leads the story away from the mystery element.While Jamie Bell does bring out some very endearing traits in his lost character, he was limited by the obviousness of his psychological needs. This movie is in no way mysterious, yet it is not blunt either. It tries to be realistic in dealing with such issues, but it adds a very self-conscious spunk which registers itself as quite the opposite. It goes for a soundtrack-heavy, Trainspotting attitude to help the audience root for a protagonist who scales buildings, picks locks, and camps out for the sake of voyeurism. These urban peeping tom adventures Hallam engages in are way too difficult for an inward-drawn country boy to engage in and they are not sexy, giddy, or pleasant. They are more neutral than anything; not propelling the character or story. Mackenzie makes you understand Hallam, yet he fails to build common ground.He expects you to enjoy Hallam's trials and tribulations without much ideological justification. The film hinges on its audience's perspective on voyeurism/the kind of person who engages in it. Obviously, most people would be disgusted by it. And Hallam Foe realizes that, but it does not let us see Hallam weigh the morality of his decisions. He goes from person to person, trying to fill his deep void. There is a particularly disturbing line from Hallam's love interest Kate where she drunkenly says "I love creepy boys," perhaps asking the audience to do the same. The line tries to foreshadow her understanding of him (her motivation remains vague throughout) and tries to further us from judging him. It's not hard to like Hallam, but it is very hard to participate in his adventure- if it is even an adventure at all. All the while, the film tries to use its flamboyant soundtrack to mask its indecisive mood.Great performances are weighed down by a film with a weak third act, muddy development, and needlessly ambiguous direction from Mackenzie. Recently this film was re-named for a US release, and for what reason? Not only is it more unappealing, but the hard truth is that the Hallam character never earns the title 'mister.'

it is great to see jamie bell develop into such a fine actor. his performance in this lacklustre film really saved it from being completely unwatchable. it is a pity that his touching performance which was so subtle was not better used.the film doesn't know what it is, is it a peeping tom movie, are we going to discover the murky habitat of a teenage prowler. or is it a coming of age story as a young adolescent learns to deal with his mothers death. the film could neither play up to the sinister suggestions of the beginning or play it down. i kept waiting for something dangerous to happen, feeling that the story was stuck in a boring interlude, until i realised that was the story. a boy falls in love with a girl who looks like his mother - and the imagined murder of her mother was the interlude.well i still rate this film as watchable purely because of jamie bell's beautiful nuanced performance but for nothing else