'Little Joe' is an 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' for the age of antidepressants, says Peter Travers. Our review
for the age of antidepressants — that’sthe seventh feature from Austrian provocateur Jessica Hausner . Hausner doesn’t so much do anotherremake as spin its thesis for her own cerebral twists. Borrowed inspiration? Maybe. Too deliberately paced? For sure. But watch out for Hausner. She’s a cinematic hypnotist of a high order.
A coolly magnetic Emily Beecham — she won the Best Actress prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival — as Alice Woodard, a senior plant breeder at Planthouse Biotechnologies in England. The corporate lab has given Alice her own wonderland; for her, it’s a place to experiment with and care for her own breed of flower whose pollen, once inhaled, has the power to induce a feeling of supreme contentment.
Still, there’s something unnerving about that plant as cinematographer Martin Gschlacht’s camera sweeps across rows and rows of those seemingly benign flowers, their red tendrils appearing ready to choke off all opposition. Suddenly we’re in shivery territory that suggests the films of David Cronenberg. The electronic drip of the score by Teiji Ito and Markus Binder adds to the unease, as does Bella , an older co-worker whose dog just isn’t the same after he spends a night in the lab.
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