The boy has issues. Hallam Foe(Jamie Bell) hates his new stepmom, but it doesn't stop him from doing her, in a tree-house, no less. The young lad hates Verity(Claire Forlani) because he suspects her of killing his mother. That's why the sex is so shocking, and more disturbingly, erotic, because sex with the mother surrogate might be some fulfillment of a deep-rooted craving for his real mom. Initially, the tree-house episode starts off as a half-hearted murder attempt. Hallam grabs her neck; the stepmother retaliates by grabbing his c***, then baser instincts take over. As they rut like pigs on the floorboards, there's the added luridness of the dead mother's likeness overlooking their unwholesome coupling. Hallam hangs a poster-sized image of his mother, in which she looks more like a woman instead of a parent. Shot in black and white, the mother could be modeling a fragrance. For the Oedipus complex to be fully realized as a central theme in "Hallum Foe", however, the boy needs to make an overture towards killing his father. The fact that Hallum has no such murderous intentions with Julius Foe(Cirian Hinds), speaks to the filmmaker's timidity with the matter of his son's psycho-sexual problems. "Hallum Foe" is kinky, but not too kinky, and ultimately, not too honest about the delicate subject that is incest.
Hallam Foe needs a new scene, so he leaves the Scottish countryside and moves to Edinburgh, leaving behind his mother issues. Hallam Foe needs a girl. Alas, the first girl that catches the young man's eye just happens to be his mother's doppleganger; he follows Kate(Sophia Myles) to the hotel where she works as a human resources specialist. She hires Hallam as a kitchen porter. He's smitten. She's smitten, too. Soon, the lad is up to his old voyeuristic ways, spying on her from behind a clock face in the hotel's attic, which offers up a perfect view of her apartment. At times, "Hallam Foe" suggests what "Back to the Future" would look like if Alfred Hitchcock directed it. In the Robert Zemeckis film, the Michael J. Fox character goes back in time and meets his mother(Lea Thompson) as a contemporary, as a pre-maternal woman. They're simply Marty and Lorraine. In a parked car, Marty watches in awe as his mother drinks and smokes. He could have her. In "Hallum Foe", the boy looks out of a crack in the clock's face, which could be suggested as a rift in time that allows Hallum to have what Marty had, a chance to know his mother as a nubile. After Hallum watches Kate have sex with her boss, in the very next scene, he's perusing one of his mother's old birthday greetings. Since Hallum eventually beds Kate, the sight of the mother's double having rough sex with another man would seem to indicate that his covert witnessing triggered a feeling of longing that's both romantic, and parental.
In the film's most pivotal scene, "Hallam Foe" evokes Hitchcock's "Vertigo" when Kate wears the dress of Hallam's dead mother. The boy bursts into tears, then cuts away to the two lovers lying in bed. To a certain extent, the filmmaker shrinks back from dealing directly with Hallum's psychosis. The most basic question goes unanswered: Does Hallum accept Kate as a separate entity from his mother? The film is too coy, although the film hints that he's knowingly having relations with his mother, through the use of a key close-up that isolates Kate's eye, an echo of an earlier scene back at the tree-house, in which Hallum tears down his mother's vandalized blow-up, leaving behind a single eye. A brave filmmaker, such as David Lynch, for starters, would crank up the erotic heat once Kate brings Hallum's mother back to life by wearing that dress. If "Vertigo" was made today, and not 1958, Scottie Ferguson(Jimmy Stewart) would nail Judy Barton(Kim Novak) in an instant after raising Madeleine from the dead. Since the film's treatment of their workplace romancing is rendered as cute and healthy, the filmmaker misses a golden opportunity to challenge his objective attitude towards their almost-incestuous relationship by making it unequivocally clear that Kate is Hallum's second chance to indulge in his sexual psychosis, which went unconsummated when the boy's mother drowned. The film's climax, albeit exciting, is all wrong. He goes after the wrong person. By going after the stepmother instead of the father, "Hallum Foe" never fully commits to the idea that the boy thinks Kate is his dead mother. Hallum has a complex all right; it's just not the Oedipus one.
The filmmaker pulls too many punches; he tries to make a crowd-pleaser out of some very dark material.
Hallam Foe needs a new scene, so he leaves the Scottish countryside and moves to Edinburgh, leaving behind his mother issues. Hallam Foe needs a girl. Alas, the first girl that catches the young man's eye just happens to be his mother's doppleganger; he follows Kate(Sophia Myles) to the hotel where she works as a human resources specialist. She hires Hallam as a kitchen porter. He's smitten. She's smitten, too. Soon, the lad is up to his old voyeuristic ways, spying on her from behind a clock face in the hotel's attic, which offers up a perfect view of her apartment. At times, "Hallam Foe" suggests what "Back to the Future" would look like if Alfred Hitchcock directed it. In the Robert Zemeckis film, the Michael J. Fox character goes back in time and meets his mother(Lea Thompson) as a contemporary, as a pre-maternal woman. They're simply Marty and Lorraine. In a parked car, Marty watches in awe as his mother drinks and smokes. He could have her. In "Hallum Foe", the boy looks out of a crack in the clock's face, which could be suggested as a rift in time that allows Hallum to have what Marty had, a chance to know his mother as a nubile. After Hallum watches Kate have sex with her boss, in the very next scene, he's perusing one of his mother's old birthday greetings. Since Hallum eventually beds Kate, the sight of the mother's double having rough sex with another man would seem to indicate that his covert witnessing triggered a feeling of longing that's both romantic, and parental.
In the film's most pivotal scene, "Hallam Foe" evokes Hitchcock's "Vertigo" when Kate wears the dress of Hallam's dead mother. The boy bursts into tears, then cuts away to the two lovers lying in bed. To a certain extent, the filmmaker shrinks back from dealing directly with Hallum's psychosis. The most basic question goes unanswered: Does Hallum accept Kate as a separate entity from his mother? The film is too coy, although the film hints that he's knowingly having relations with his mother, through the use of a key close-up that isolates Kate's eye, an echo of an earlier scene back at the tree-house, in which Hallum tears down his mother's vandalized blow-up, leaving behind a single eye. A brave filmmaker, such as David Lynch, for starters, would crank up the erotic heat once Kate brings Hallum's mother back to life by wearing that dress. If "Vertigo" was made today, and not 1958, Scottie Ferguson(Jimmy Stewart) would nail Judy Barton(Kim Novak) in an instant after raising Madeleine from the dead. Since the film's treatment of their workplace romancing is rendered as cute and healthy, the filmmaker misses a golden opportunity to challenge his objective attitude towards their almost-incestuous relationship by making it unequivocally clear that Kate is Hallum's second chance to indulge in his sexual psychosis, which went unconsummated when the boy's mother drowned. The film's climax, albeit exciting, is all wrong. He goes after the wrong person. By going after the stepmother instead of the father, "Hallum Foe" never fully commits to the idea that the boy thinks Kate is his dead mother. Hallum has a complex all right; it's just not the Oedipus one.
The filmmaker pulls too many punches; he tries to make a crowd-pleaser out of some very dark material.