‘The Fox’ Review: This Grim Australian Fairy Tale Lets Jai Courtney Be Wonderfully Weird
Whether we meant to or not, we’ve all been watching the career of Jai Courtney as it’s evolved. There was time when Hollywood was convinced this Australian actor was the next big action star, and cast him in one giant franchise after another. “Die Hard,” “Divergent,” “Terminator” and “Suicide Squad,” these films were heavily promoted and, mostly, underwhelmed, and while none of them were Courtney’s fault they also — with the exception of “Suicide Squad” — had no idea what to do with him. Yes, he’s very handsome. Yes, he’s got muscles to spare. But no, he’s not a mainstream action star. He’s a fascinating weirdo with a great sense of humor.
If you missed last year’s “Dangerous Animals,” you missed an epic Courtney performance where he plays a serial killer who feeds his victims to sharks. Totally unhinged, absolutely mesmerizing—that’s his wheelhouse. Although the new absurdist comedy “The Fox” is nowhere near as wild or chaotic, it once again gives this actor an opportunity to indulge in eccentricity. Courtney plays a big ol’ sack of crap in “The Fox,” but there’s a dorky honesty to his performance that makes you pity him, no matter how bad he screws up. With his goofy 1970s porno mustache, he can’t help but remind you of “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” if Paul Blart was on “The Substance.”
“The Fox” stars Courtney as Nick, who lives in a small town in Australia and works on his dad’s farm. He doesn’t seem like a bad guy, but he’s boring and a lousy lover. Nick’s in love with Kori (Emily Browning), who was about to break up with him before he proposed in public. This is awkward, since she’s having an affair with her married boss, Derek (Damon Herriman), whose wife Diana (Claudia Doumit) is also her best friend.
Diana figures out she’s been betrayed, but Nick refuses to believe her—until one night, while he’s hunting a fox, the fox drops the bombshell. Yes, Kori is cheating on him. Everyone knows. Even the animals, and they’re all pretty embarrassed for him. The good news, according to the fox (voiced by Olivia Colman), is that she knows how to solve his problem. He just has to drop Kori in a great big hole in the middle of the forest. Never mind how, the fox says, but Kori will come back, and she’ll be everything Nick always wanted as a wife.
Nick is not a smart man. Diana isn’t exactly using her wise mind either, since she winds up going along with his plan—which sounds a lot like murder. You’d think the “talking animals” thing would be a red flag for Diana, and anyone else, but this is rural Australia, and apparently animals just talk to people sometimes. They gossip, they warn you about duplicitous foxes, they just remind you to be a good neighbor and dump your food on the front lawn. Nobody bats an eye when a magpie asks you to buy it a roasted chicken. They’re just annoyed that a magpie (voiced by Sam Neill) is all up in their business.
Anyway, the plan works—kind of. Kori returns, naked and covered in dirt, and she’ll do anything Nick asks. She’ll brutally dump Derek. She’ll have sex whenever he wants. She’s the perfect, submissive housewife—and, of course, that’s not what Nick actually wanted. Something’s off. His foxy wife is a little too foxy, if you know what I mean. He’s about to learn some bizarre truths about the world he lives in, and about how every marriage eventually falls apart. And he won’t like it one bit, even though he’s part of the problem.
“The Fox” is written and directed by Dario Russo, the creator of the cult classic sci-fi comedy series “Danger 5.” He can be droll; he can be wacky, but there’s an underlying cynicism to “The Fox” that gives it heft. This movie has a dim view of human nature, arguing that people are the only animals in the world that actively try to make themselves unhappy, and refuse to believe they could live any other way. We invented phrases like “it is what it is” as a self-defense mechanism, not to hand-wave away the awfulness of existence, but to excuse ourselves from doing anything to change it.
This bleak worldview prevents “The Fox” from being what you might conventionally call “fun.” That’s by design, of course. It’s like Sally Sparrow said in “Doctor Who”: Sad is happy, for deep people. But I’m not convinced “The Fox” is terribly deep. Russo’s film opens with existential thoughts about the human experience but concludes in defeat, having learned little or nothing after telling its grim fairy tale. Maybe the point is life is pointless. That love is a lie. It’s a lot of effort to get right back to where you started, so the only question is whether it’s worth taking the scenic route to get there. I guess it depends on how much free time you have, how much you like weird, dour comedy, and how much you like watching Nick.
Because in the end, I’m pretty sure “The Fox” is just about Nick and how much he sucks. Courtney is wonderful at playing a sucky guy. Nick makes terrible choices because he’s as dim as a dollar-store curtain, and everyone around him knows it. The message is simple: “Don’t be Nick.” Don’t do every single thing everyone tells you. Don’t throw your girlfriend down a hole. Don’t stay engaged to someone who doesn’t love you.
Yes, “Don’t be Nick” is good advice. Unless you’re Courtney. If you’re Courtney, keep being Nick. You’re great at playing fascinating weirdos, and movies need a lot more fascinating weirdos.
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