Little Joe

Name: Little Joe
Genre: Sci-Fi, Drama, Mystery, Horror
Released: December 6, 2019
Duration: 105 min
Rating: 60
Cast: Andrew Rajan, Ben Whishaw, David Wilmot, Emily Beecham, Goran Kostic

2019

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Mixed or average reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 13 Ratings

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Little Joe

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Movie Details & Credits

Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: December 6, 2019 | Not Rated

Starring: Andrew Rajan, Ben Whishaw, David Wilmot, Emily Beecham, Goran Kostic, Jason Cloud, Jessie Mae Alonzo, Kerry Fox, Kit Connor, Leanne Best, Lindsay Duncan, Phénix Brossard, Sebastian Hülk, Yana Yanezic

Summary: Alice (Emily Beecham) is a single mother and dedicated senior plant breeder at a corporation engaged in developing new species. She has engineered a special crimson flower, remarkable not only for its beauty but also for its therapeutic value: if kept at the ideal temperature, fed properly and spoken to regularly, this plant makes its ownerAlice (Emily Beecham) is a single mother and dedicated senior plant breeder at a corporation engaged in developing new species. She has engineered a special crimson flower, remarkable not only for its beauty but also for its therapeutic value: if kept at the ideal temperature, fed properly and spoken to regularly, this plant makes its owner happy. Against company policy, Alice takes one home as a gift for her teenage son, Joe. They christen it ‘Little Joe.’ But as their plant grows, so too does Alice’s suspicion that her new creation may not be as harmless as its nickname suggests.… Expand

Director: Jessica Hausner

Genre(s): Sci-Fi, Drama, Mystery, Horror

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 105 min

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Critic Reviews

A.A. Dowd

May 18, 2019

Visually, it’s a total feast for the eyes, contrasting art-deco pinks and mint greens against sterile, symmetrically framed expanses of white, vaguely evoking the aesthetic of some lost sci-fi film of the ’70s. Read full review

Owen Gleiberman

May 17, 2019

An artfully unnerving, austerely hypnotic horror movie about a very sinister plant. Read full review

Chuck Bowen

Nov 26, 2019

Jessica Hausner confidently expresses a thorny and disturbing theme, though perhaps with too much confidence. Read full review

Andrew Crump

Dec 12, 2019

Little Joe could use a trim for better deployment of plot and unnerving atmosphere. No matter. Little Joe is a quirkily rattling movie, an off-kilter tonic during the year-end onslaught of movies proclaimed “important” by their studios, and what the film lacks in structure it makes up for in its eerie, cold singularity. Read full review

Movie Nation Roger Moore

Nov 11, 2019

It’s a mood piece, and the element that ensures that it comes off is Matz Müller’s brittle, unsettling soundtrack. The characters may debate the morality of their behavior in dialogue, but it is the soundtrack that matches their actions — violent, reckless and disharmonious to the end. Read full review

John Bleasdale

May 18, 2019

Compared to the sophisticated and nuanced horrors of Black Mirror, Little Joe feels like a fairly straightforward riff on a very familiar idea. Read full review

Todd McCarthy

May 17, 2019

A lifeless, tone-deaf variation on Invasion of the Body Snatchers. ... There’s just nothing going on here with which to engage your interest, nor is there a single moment to even slightly increase the viewer’s pulse rate. Read full review

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User Reviews

Dan_B

Dec 18, 2020

Fascinating combination of sci-fi, psychological horror, paranoid thriller and family drama about motherhood

Alice (Emily Beecham) es una bióloga que trabaja en un instituto de biotecnología vegetal en Londres. Logró poner a punto por ingeniería genética una flor que en determinadasFascinating combination of sci-fi, psychological horror, paranoid thriller and family drama about motherhood

Alice (Emily Beecham) es una bióloga que trabaja en un instituto de biotecnología vegetal en Londres. Logró poner a punto por ingeniería genética una flor que en determinadas condiciones libera elementos que "ponen a la gente feliz" y se dispone a presentarla en una feria . Pero con el tiempo se verá que los efectos acaso puedan ser otros.

Esta película de Jessica Hausner puede ser encuadrada dentro de varios géneros que van cambiando o se van combinando a medida que uno va viendo la película y la evolución de sus personajes: ciencia ficción, terror psicológico, thriller paranoide.

Como toda buena película de género, la película presenta un nudo dramático que lo trasciende y le da sentido: la relación de Alice con su hijo preadolescente Joe (Kit Connor), a quien ella regala una de sus flores (bautizada Little Joe en honor a él), relación que empieza a modificarse a partir de ese momento. Madre sobreprotectora y a la vez ausente por su devoción por el trabajo, estos cambios comienzan a horadar sus certezas profesionales. De este modo la película aporta una perturbadora miradda sobre la maternidad. Un proceso similar sufre Alice en su relación con Chris, un compañero de trabajo y posible interés amoroso (Ben Wishow). La película puede ser leída como una relectura de otra película cuya filiación incluso reconoce su directora, pero la profundidad psicológica y estilo de Little Joe son muy diferentes y mucho más actuales y va mucho más allá de constituirse en una obvia metáfora sobre panaceas psicofarmacológicas. Uno de los mayores atributos de este film es la elegancia hipnótica de su puesta en escena: las locaciones, los colores, la simetría, la iluminación, la fotografía... pocas películas pueden darse el lujo de dejar imágenes iconográficas y potentes en el espectador y ésta es una de ellas. Sin dudas que el vivero y todo el Instituto quedarán en su retina. Del mismo modo, cautiva la sequedad muy austríaca de los diálogos, que por momentos refuerza la atmósfera ambigua y paranoide.

El devenir de la investigación científica, las actitudes de los científicos y los aspectos bioéticos también se integran a la trama de una manera tan natural como necesaria y despiertan inquietantes ecos actuales en una película de 2019.

Las actuaciones dan con el tono justo. Emily Beecham ganó el premio a la mejor actriz en el Festival de Cannes 2019 por este papel.

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Alice (Emily Beecham) is a biologist working at an institute for plant biotechnology in London. She managed to genetically engineer a flower that under certain conditions releases elements that "make people happy" and is about to present it at a fair. But with time she will see that the effects may be other.

This Jessica Hausner film can be framed within several genres that change or combine as one watches the film and the evolution of its characters: science fiction, psychological terror, paranoid thriller.

Like any good genre film, the film presents a dramatic knot that transcends it and gives it meaning: Alice's relationship with her pre-adolescent son Joe (Kit Connor), to whom she gives one of her flowers (named Little Joe in honor of him), a relationship that begins to change from that moment on. An overprotective mother and at the same time absent due to her devotion to her work, these changes begin to pierce her professional certainties. In this way, the film provides a disturbing look at motherhood. A similar process goes through Alice in her relationship with Chris, a co-worker and possible love interest (Ben Wishow).

The film can be read as a rereading of another film whose parentage even its director recognizes, but Little Joe's psychological depth and style are very different and much more current and it goes far beyond becoming an obvious metaphor for psychopharmacological panaceas.

One of the greatest attributes of this film is the hypnotic elegance of its staging: the locations, the colors, the symmetry, the lighting, the photography ... few films can afford to leave powerful and iconographic images in the viewer And this is one of them. Undoubtedly, the nursery and the entire Institute will remain in your retina.

In the same way, the very Austrian dryness of the dialogues captivates, which at times reinforces the ambiguous and paranoid atmosphere.

The evolution of scientific research, the attitudes of scientists and bioethical aspects are also integrated into the plot in a way that is as natural as it is necessary and awakens disturbing current echoes in a 2019 film.

The performances strike the right tone. Emily Beecham won the best actress award at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival for this role.… Expand

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MarkTakayama

Jul 19, 2020

I like this movie. Little Joe was a beautiful flower. The flower has a mysterious power. I like the music. It sounds like very Asian.After you watched the movie, you would think "What is our happiness?' Does Little Joe make us happy?

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temptershell

Jan 4, 2020

An interesting vision, although very intimate and completely idiotic in scientific terms. At all, the film is not convincing, although interestingly artificial acting.

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Bertaut1

Feb 29, 2020

A fascinating premise and setup, but the execution is tedious

Little Joe is a clinically detached, aesthetically fascinating pseudo-horror with a great premise but questionable execution. I thoroughly enjoyed the first hour or so, relishing the slow pace and methodical build. However, atA fascinating premise and setup, but the execution is tedious

Little Joe is a clinically detached, aesthetically fascinating pseudo-horror with a great premise but questionable execution. I thoroughly enjoyed the first hour or so, relishing the slow pace and methodical build. However, at around the 75-minute mark, I realised that this wasn't a slow build to something; this slow build was the something. And with that realisation, it didn't take long for tedium to settle in. I certainly admire the stunning visual and aural design, but as a whole, it's like a long sentence spoken in a gratingly monotone voice.

Alice (Emily Beecham) is a plant breeder at Planthouse Biotechnologies, a bioengineering lab that designs new types of flora. As the film begins, she and her colleague Chris (Ben Whishaw) are unveiling their latest creation – a flower she's named Little Joe, which omits a scent that makes people happy on a biochemical level. Shortly thereafter, Alice smuggles a Little Joe out of the lab and gifts it to her young son Joe (Kit Connor), after whom she named the flower. Meanwhile, Planthouse employee Bella (Kerry Fox), who has had mental health problems in the past, becomes concerned for her dog, Bello, who has started to show signs of aggression. Bella soon becomes concerned that this change has been brought about by exposure to Little Joe's pollen, but Alice is dismissive of her fears, until she starts to notice subtle changes in Joe's behaviour as well.

Written by Jessica Hausner and Géraldine Bajard, and directed by Hausner, Little Joe builds a general tone of unease rather than relying on traditional horror beats, and is kind of like an episode of Black Mirror, but focusing on biology rather than technology.

The most immediately obvious element of the film is the sound design by Erik Mischijew and Matz Müller. Before we see any images, we hear a high-pitched drone, which later becomes a motif that suggests unease and danger. Important to the sound design is the score, or rather the lack of score. Hausner elected not to have original music composed for the film, but instead to use existing music written by Teiji Ito, which itself is deeply discordant, abrasive, and unsettling and which blends into the sound design. On top of this, Mischijew and Müller use the sounds of screeching metal, rustling, screams, and dogs barking. It's all wonderfully chaotic, defamiliarising, and unnerving.

The other aesthetic element that really pops is the cinematography, specifically how the camera moves. Director of photography Martin Gschlacht often shots scenes as if he's capturing images for a diorama – long, slow pans that often start and finish with the characters not in the frame. Equally as interesting is that on two occasions, he shoots a conversation by very slowly tracking in between the participants to the point where neither one is on-screen.

Thematically, the film suggests that if happiness could be made tangible and commodified, rather than such knowledge being used for the betterment of mankind, it would instead be a tool for control. If you created something that could make people fundamentally happy, think of the power you'd wield if you took that thing away, and only you could restore it; "sure, I'll let you experience that bliss again, all you have to do is everything I say". In an age when happiness as an abstract concept is being distilled into the evermore tangible, Little Joe posits a scenario where the abstract is made completely literal.

However, whilst the idea that most people would be willing to take fake happiness over real discontent is a compelling one, on more than one occasion, Hausner equates such happiness with the use of anti-depressants, implying that the daily use of pharmaceuticals is akin to people being somehow less than their "real" selves. That this is naïve hardly needs explaining, and to suggest that such people are being zombified is not only inaccurate, it's dangerous, the kind of rubbish that Scientologists yammer on about.

On a slightly different point, I'm not sure that the depiction of Alice's difficulty in finding a balance between home and work, and the suggestion that she has only achieved professional success by neglecting her child, will go down very well with the tens of thousands of professional women who are also single mothers, and who have managed to climb the ladder of success and be there for their children.

Little Joe has a lot going for it – an intriguing premise, a great cast, a gorgeous visual design, a superb aural design – but it all matters little when the narrative is so tediously plodding, with a message about pharmaceuticals that's well-intentioned, but misguided. I do hope the film opens doors for Hausner, who's clearly a talented filmmaker. But Little Joe lacks the subtle ambiguity of Hausner's Lourdes (2009), the bombast of a horror, the esoteric coherence of a satire, and the narrative drive of a thriller.… Expand

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Brent_Marchant

May 22, 2020

This sci-fi/psychological thriller about a research horticulturist who breeds a plant designed to help promote feelings of human happiness and well-being (and subsequently has second thoughts about her creation when it begins to have unexpected effects) prompts a plethora of questions aboutThis sci-fi/psychological thriller about a research horticulturist who breeds a plant designed to help promote feelings of human happiness and well-being (and subsequently has second thoughts about her creation when it begins to have unexpected effects) prompts a plethora of questions about what promotes and constitutes true happiness. This botanical terrestrial homage to "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," mixed with a variety of other influences (including some that will seem eerily relevant at the moment), gives us much profound food for thought. However, director Jessica Hausner's execution is needlessly muddled by painfully slow pacing, robbing viewers of the happiness that should naturally come from watching a good film. There was a lot of potential here, both for a captivating tale and a thoughtful psychological/metaphysical exploration, but, regrettably, those elements became bogged down by a heavy hand when a lighter touch would have sufficed.… Expand

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