When easygoing Nick (Jai Courtney) encounters a talking fox who offers him a way to fix his ailing relationship with his fiancée, he takes a drastic step that will change everything about the world around him in The Fox, the debut feature film from Danger 5 co-creator Dario Russo.
Nick’s life is a dream as far as he knows, he works for his father taking care of the family farm while his new fiancée Kori (Emily Browning) holds down a day job at a rural doctor’s office. Their lives in the Adelaide Hills seem to be as idyllic as they come, but Nick’s rose-colored glasses have hidden the cracks in his relationship that are obvious to everyone around him, including the local wildlife.
When he tracks down a fox that attacked his father’s henhouse and prepares to pull the trigger, The Fox, voiced by Academy Award winner Olivia Colman, offers him a deal. If Nick will spare her life, she will give him the key to his own happily ever after, a way to turn Kori’s wandering eye back to him forever. Desperate and hopelessly in love with a woman who clearly doesn’t share his affections, he takes the deal, which involves tossing his beloved into a hole in the woods and waiting. What emerges is a woman reborn and devoted to him, a dream result if ever there was one, but there’s something not quite right about Kori, and the truth will unravel the life he thinks he’s been leading for decades.
There’s something charming about this surrealist adult fairy tale that draws you into a world where talking (and shit-talking) animals are less of a surprise that cheating spouses to the characters inhabiting it. Russo first came to the attention of the world through a pair of absurdist comedies in the early ‘10s, the viral short Italian Spiderman, and the Fantastic Fest alum, Danger 5, both of which quickly became mem-fodder that persist to this day. With The Fox, that anything-goes spirit lives on, though tamped down just a tiny bit to nudge him a bit closer to the mainstream.
Don’t get it twisted, The Fox is weird as fuck, and proudly so. Jai Courtney is incredible in the lead as a gentle giant of a man who just wants to be happy drinking his beers and screwing the lady he loves. There’s an affability and innocence to his performance that is miles away from his star turn as the sadistic shark-aided serial killer in last year’s Dangerous Animals. His charmingly oafish demeanor and figure contrast sharply with the sylphlike Emily Browning, a tiny slip of a woman with a silent disregard for the man to whom she has promised her hand in marriage.
Bumping up against their already complicated relationship is Kori’s boss, Derek (Damian Herriman) and his wife Diana (Claudia Doumit), who are entangled in ways that can only happen in incestuous small towns. As Nick’s relationship with the latest version of Kori begins to experience unexpected challenges, he begins to notice that his wife isn’t the only one acting a bit off, and soon we’re off to the races as the reality of the situation suddenly lays bare a hidden truth about the town, the fox, and the pit in the forest.
Bless Dario Russo for putting together a project where all of these actors get a chance to really gnaw on the scenery in ways that you just can’t do in most mainstream cinema. Courtney is a dynamo as the dim-witted Nick, a charming character who isn’t really very good at anything, including being a loving, responsive partner to Kori. But that doesn’t stop you from kind of rooting for him, even as he makes questionable choices that really make that difficult. Emily Browning is also swinging for the fences in a go-for-broke performance that seems as physically challenging as it is emotionally. She plays two full characters with very different demeanors and gives it her all in both cases. This lead pair are surrounded by a supporting cast, both man and beast (did I mention that Sam Neill voices a nosy magpie, because he does), that prop up this insane world and make it all very fun for the audience to inhabit.
There’s a lo-fi aesthetic charm to The Fox that adds to the off-kilter feel of the whole thing and makes it feel homemade in a very cozy way. The locations all feel real and lived in, while the foxes are all obviously puppets which is immensely preferable to a soulless digital clone. When Jai Courtney talks to a desperate fox and Olivia Colman’s voice comes out, you believe it because you know that they are actually on set together. There is no winking at the camera, no acknowledgement that this is absurd, The Fox simply is, and that confidence allows the audience to relax because we don’t have to bend over backwards to justify anything if this is all possible in the world. Bless The Fox and all of its playful weirdness, we need more of that in this world, and of course, more Jai Courtney wouldn’t hurt, either.