Film Review: Little Joe Is The Creepiest, Happiest Film Of The Year
Written and directed by Jessica Hausner, Little Joe is more than just a sci-fi thriller based upon a plant. It is an intriguing, philosophical debate on what is “happiness” and how we, as a society, define and confuse it for numbness. The result is a film that is visually stunning, with pops of gorgeous color, and conversations starters on what it means to let go of worry.
Emily Beecham plays Alice Woodard; an intelligent, reserved botanist that has dedicated her life to creating a new species of plant she names after her son, “Little Joe.” It is in here that the film finds its emotional clutch. Alice clearly loves her work and has lost a marriage and time with her child because of it. She feels guilty, and socially punished and burdened by the pressure to be a more invested mother and less invested career woman. Hence, her song, Kit Connor as Joe wishes to move with his dad to her chagrin. The film finds its heart in discussing the societal versus between working women and motherhood because, frankly, Alice loves to watch Little Joe grow and change people the way her actual son, Joe, does. They are both, equally, her beloved children. Hence, the “horror” begins.
It would not be a creepy film without some type of very weird dilemma, but Hausner’s choice of “problem” is fascinating. With a whiff of its pollen, Little Joe turns anyone into a “happy” person. They become kinder, easy-going, and eager to spread their connection and Little Joe’s power/lifespan, at all costs. Let someone like Kerry Fox’s suspicious Bella sniff out how Little Joe, literally, changes people’s behaviors, and Little Joe will find a way to make them behave. Yet, as people begin to change to become more joyous and even thoughtful like Ben Whishaw’s Chris, even you feel like there is something off. It is as if our anxieties make us human, and our fears/ self-doubts keep us anchored to sanity.
As the film progresses and so does Little Joe’s hold overpeople, Hausner’s script and masterful cinematography enrapture viewers and pushes them further into her idealogical wonders. As more people become “victims,” you wonder whether they truly are or rather why happiness is perceived as numbness. In a fantastic scene, Alice confronts her son if he has been infected, of which he laughingly explains how he and his friend have become “dead inside;” acting through the routines of their now gone humanity. Yet, he exclaims, at least, they are happy. I was dumb-founded because Hausner had tapped into so perfectly how human beings see happiness as death; as someone who no longer cares and just rides emotions like they are programs entered in a computer. Who knows what joy is, but I am glad Little Joe confronts how we see it. Little Joe is out in theaters and digital on December 6.
