Dario Russo (director)
Causeway Films (studio)
Not yet rated (certificate)
90 mins (length)
11 October 2026 (released)
10 h
Opening with possibly the bleakest marriage proposal of all time, The Fox forages for biting dark comedy in the at times animalistic mating habits of its human characters, uncovering a feast of earthly delights and devilish charms along the way. This gruff and playfully cruel film begs the question, if you could replace your partner with a better version of themselves, why wouldn’t you?
Jai Courtney, in possibly a career-best performance, plays Nick, a hard-drinking farmer who takes his sensitive wife Kori (Emily Browning) for granted. Unsatisfied and unheard, Kori has an affair with a lecherous coworker, whilst the blissfully unaware Nick happily shoots any foxes he catches on his land. When one of these foxes opens her mouth and, with the immediately lovable voice of Olivia Colman, spills the truth about his wife’s affair, Nick’s bizarre odyssey into the darker side of marriage gets underway.
A real anarchic spirit runs riot throughout this film, utilising several plot twists (some of which are easier to see coming than others) as it jumps from body comedy to body horror and back again, sometimes mid-scene or even mid-sentence. The film’s central triumph is that its human characters are just as monstrous and slaves to their nature as the animals. This is a world where a person can open a door and meet someone they know, an animal, or maybe both at once.
The animals themselves are a real highlight, rendered with wonderful puppetry and strong voice performances, both from Colman and Sam Neill (in what appears tragically to be one of his last roles) as the local magpie who barters information for hot chicken whenever he can. It’s refreshing to see tactile creatures sharing the space with actors, in an age where CGI is called on too frequently to fill the empty space performers are made to work opposite to.
It’s also great to see a film where animals and humans interact and at no point have some smartarse ask the obvious question, “Why is the fox talking?” She’s the titular character, you wally, of course she’s going to talk.
