Cannes 2019: Reviews on LITTLE JOE by Jessica Hausner
a mordant, amusing movie from the Austrian director Jessica Hausner.
Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
This does not prevent this virtuoso film from being irrefutably modern, from putting the sacrilegious audacity of science
at the service of the most corrosive satire and the most vertiginous existential questions.
Thomas Sotinel, Le Monde
She holds us in a refined trance, tantalized with fascination at what’s waiting around the corner. Keeping her camera
moving with slow-glide voyeurism, she turns those plants into disquieting “creatures” even when they’re just
sitting there being their innocent selves.
Hausner gets pinpoint performances out of her actors, and she needs to, since so much of “Little Joe” pivots around
the subtlest of personality shadings.
Owen Gleiberman, Variety
The intriguing atmosphere is boosted substantially by the smart use of sound – panicky metallic squealsshred our nerves
– and particularly music: angular, jagged pieces written by Japanese composer Teiji Ito inthe early 1970s which elegantly
complement the striking precision of the cinematography.
Wendy Ide, Screen International
...the latest masterful psychodrama from Austrian powerhouse Jessica Hausner
Hausner is one of the few contemporary filmmakers who deserves to be thought of as Kubrick’s heir, and her control over
her compositions is as commanding as ever... Little Joe only needs a few minutes to make you terrified of a simple plant
— this movie will do for greenhouses what “Psycho” did for showers."
David Ehrlich, IndieWire
... direction artistique au scalpel, dont la somptueuse palette chromatique semble compléter scrupuleusement de la rousseur
de l’héroïne ...
Julien Gester, Libération
"…the design is sumptuous. Hausner’s regular photographer, the amazing Martin Gschlacht, does dazzling things with
ultraviolet reflections under all this glass. The effects job on the flowers, with their quivering, fast-growing red tendrils
like a sea anemone’s fronds, feels as distinctive as the musical score, a repurposed suite of tracks by the Japanese
composer Teiji Ito, which create an unsettling fairytale vibe …"
Tim Robey, The Telegraph
