Little Joe

Little Joe is a 2019 internationally produced breathtakingly modern, sci-fi drama directed by Austrian filmmaker, Jessica Hausner.

Having competed for the Palme d’Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, Hausner’s first English-language film is a clinical, existential horror movie of disturbing themes set in pastel colours. Stylish, yet perhaps even cold, the plot’s leading character, Alice – played by Emily Beecham, who won Best Actress at Cannes – delves into the issues of complicated emotions, synthetic pleasures and the modern allure of idealised happiness. 

Alice Woodward, a single mother, is a dedicated plant breeder who works at an organisation focussing on the creation of a new species. She successfully engineers a beautiful, special crimson-coloured flower that offers therapeutic value. While it does require more care than a normal species – needing to be kept at an ideal temperature, fed properly and regularly spoken to – it subsequently makes its owner happy. Alice decides to name it “Little Joe” in honour of her teenage son, and smuggles one out of her work lab and takes it home as a gift for him. 

Soon, Little Joe begins to pollinate aggressively, which Alice blames on their sterilisation. Yet all may not be so as rosy and simple as it seems when strange occurrences begin to blight Alice’s life: her work colleague Bella (Kerry Fox) unexpectedly puts Alice’s dog down and her friend Chris (Ben Whishaw) attempts to repeatedly kiss her despite her obvious reluctance. 

When Alice’s son steals a Little Joe from the lab, he is accidentally pollinated and later tells his mother that he’s considering moving in with his father. Deeply troubled and bothered by this erratic behaviour from her son, Alice begins to examine individuals who have been exposed to the pollen. In every instance she finds that their families had reported they were exhibiting abnormal mannerisms. It is during these scenes that actress Emily Beecham terrifically switches between conviction and doubt with effortless ease. 

Whilst Alice’s boss dismisses her initial concerns that her unorthodoxly engineered Little Joe’s are carrying a virus, she decides to take matters into her own hands and kill the species before they’re able to be commercialised. She is stopped by Chris, who, in trying to prevent her from harming the flowers, knocks her out and unexpectedly exposes her to the plant pollen. 

Alice then learns that Little Joe has been nominated for an award and will go on sale world-wide. She also allows Joe to move in with his father, and she, herself, starts a happier life – with her own Little Joe. 

During these final scenes, filmmaker Jessica Hausner makes the audience feel convinced that the open-endedness of Alice’s life is a productive one, whilst leaving you slightly edgy that Little Joe has continued to deceive and manipulate even its founder. 

The movie is too muted to be a truly creepy, heavy-handed horror, so don’t watch it expecting that. But if you’re a Black Mirror fan, you’ll love Little Joe.

Little Joe
Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon Street, Carlton, 3053
In cinemas now
cinemanova.com.au/films/little-joe