by Cláudio Alves

...but not even he could make Foe worth watching.

Since Normal People hit the small screen in 2020, the Irish actor has enjoyed a rise to fame like few before. Still, his breakthrough performance as Connell Waldron could have been a one-hit wonder with its staggering vulnerability never to be repeated. Thankfully, that wasn't to be. Though his big-screen debut, The Lost Daughter, didn't ask much from the Maynooth-born hunk with perpetually sad eyes, the 2022 double feature of Aftersun and God's Creatures revealed surprising range. So much so that he secured his first Oscar nomination for the Charlotte Wells stunner, a rare honor for its kind of understated work.

Garth Davis' Foe is the first significant stumble in a mostly impeccable resume. Still, that need not be the end-all-be-all of Mescal's 2023…...