Hallam Foe (Mister Foe) (2007)
Average Rating: 6.6/10
Reviews Counted: 61
Fresh: 44 | Rotten: 17
Carefully balanced between the dark and the dreamy, Mister Foe is a charged coming-of-age story with whimsy and bite.
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Critic Reviews: 17
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 5
Carefully balanced between the dark and the dreamy, Mister Foe is a charged coming-of-age story with whimsy and bite.
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Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 17,881
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Movie Info
With Hallam Foe, British director Peter MacKenzie and scripter Ed Whitmore adapt the 2002 novel of the same name, a quirky, bittersweet, coming-of-age psychodrama by Peter Jinks. The titular character is the 17-year-old son (Jamie Bell) of a wealthy Scottish businessman (Ciarán Hinds). Still rattled by the death of his mom (who drowned in a nearby loch), Hallam retreats into a deep-seated fantasy world. He harbors amorous feelings for his new stepmother, Verity (Claire Forlani), until he
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Cast
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Jamie Bell
Hallam Foe -
Sophia Myles
Kate -
Ciarán Hinds
Julius Foe -
Jamie Sives
Alasdair -
Maurice Roëves
Raymond -
Ewen Bremner
Andy -
Claire Forlani
Verity -
Ruthie Milne
Jenny -
John Paul Lawler
Carl -
Lucy Holt
Lucy -
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All Critics (62) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (47) | Rotten (18) | DVD (6)
Bell was a decent kid actor and a terrific dancer in Billy Elliot, but he's grown into a really first-rate actor.
Top Critic[A] prettily photographed but relationally science-fictional coming-of-age blather.
It's a coming of age you can believe in.
While the film playfully telegraphs its inspirations, Mister Foe never persuasively comes together as a dark fable about an adolescent misfit stuck in loss.
Although it's nice to see Mackenzie find uplift in the erotic, what helps drive Mister Foe is how deftly he turns chasm into intimacy between Bell and Myles, both of whom give sharply observed, charismatic portrayals.
Jamie Bell gives a watchable performance in this self-conscious, coming-of-age drama, though the film's overall effect is best described as David Lynch lite.
Jamie Bell in his most memorable outing since Billy Elliot, as a Peeping Tom acting upon Oedipal urges in a dysfunctional family drama from Scotland.
A movie about a Scottish Peeping Tom who is sufficiently demented to give even Peeping Toms a bad name, it seems to be a lot less about fetish and voyeurism, than warped emotional espionage as pathological mommy love.
it's ultimately impossible to rise above the overly melodramatic script. The world doesn't really need another wicked stepmother, after all.
Grumpy Glaswegians going at it are once again the focus of David ("Young Adam") Mackenzie's bleak and dreary -- but not wholly uninteresting -- drama.
Another successful and intriguing entry in Mackenzie's growing oeuvre.
The final installment of Mackenzie's 'sex trilogy' is so strenuously edgy it's tiresome.
This Scottish film often pushes for realism, though its stylish tones fall back on whimsy.
[Director David] Mackenzie has reined in the strangeness to deliver a conventional, if better than average, mystery.
By the end of "Hallam Foe," you've nearly forgotten his all-too-regular boy development. Now you're wondering, what's Kate doing when he's not looking?
Didn't I review this coming-of-age picture back in the spring when it was called Charlie Bartlett?
Jamie Bell in his most memorable outing since Billy Elliot, as a Peeping Tom acting upon Oedipal urges in a dysfunctional family drama from Scotland.
A worthy addition to Holden Caulfield's coming-of-age subgenre of off-kilter teenage boys let loose in big cities. Bell and Myles give terrific performances.
Audience Reviews for Hallam Foe (Mister Foe)
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Latest News on Hallam Foe (Mister Foe)
January 8, 2009:
RT Interview: Jamie Bell talks Defiance and DanceJamie Bell tap-danced his way into the national consciousness with his breakthrough performance in...
August 27, 2007:
Video Exclusive: Jamie Bell talks Hallam Foe, accents and Equus with RTRotten Tomatoes sits down with one of Britain's finest young talents to find out about his latest...
August 27, 2007:
Video Exclusive: Sophia Myles talks Hallam Foe with RTWe chat to the supremely lovely British actress about her latest role in David Mackenzie's new film.
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Foreign Titles
- Hallam Foe (DE)
- Hallam Foe (UK)
What this film lacks most is focus. At the beginning the plot tends toward a thriller/mystery vis-a-vis the possible murder of Hallam's mother, but the most unbelievable circumstances (fucking his step-mother in his tree house) push Hallam to Edinburgh where we meet Sophia Myles's character, Kate. Myles is a beautiful actress, and as Kate she walks with confidence and wherewithal. With hobbies, a fine job, a sense of compassion, and a sociable disposition, Kate seems like she has it all together. Yes, she's fucking her married boss, and yes, she does say, "I like creepy guys," but when Hallam's stalking, amateur spy behavior is revealed, her reaction defies all believability. I can imagine the film becoming a believable story about lost people who find each other and accept each other's fucked-up-ness, but with Myles as Kate and the dead mother plot stopping by every now and then as though it's checking up on how the film is progressing, the film becomes a muddled mess that has its sexy, alluring moments but ultimately sinks into a depravity that we can't follow without suspending every disbelieving bone in our bodies.
Overall, bad casting and worse writing keep this film from being anything worth watching.