Vivarium (Movie Review)

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

PLOT: A young couple seeking a new home is brought to a labyrinthine tract of identical suburban housing from which they cannot escape. As they search for answers and egress, their relationship is severely tested.

REVIEW: We’re happy to report there’s no severe sophomore slump for Irish writer/director Lorcan Finnegan, who, following debuting with the 2016 horror feature WITHOUT NAME, heeded the exegesis of his first film towards the improvement of VIVARIUM, an unsettlingly-premised, vertiginously tripped-out sci-fi jolt that starts incredibly strong, loses a momentous edge in the middle, then doubles back to finish on a thought-stirring high-note. In that regard, the film would probably function best as an hour-long Twilight Zone episode or something akin. But because of the two seasoned leads, Jesse Eisenberg and more notably Imogen Poots, the material is finessed with as much credibility as one could hope for in a plot this bizarre and outlandishly far-fetched. Alas, the same cannot be said of their two screen-partners, who, through no fault of their own, are reduced to obnoxiously screaming automatons without an ounce of redeemable likability. More on that below, but know that on the whole, VIVARIUM is a worthy if an uneven piece of pulpy science fiction to see when it drops in theaters Friday, March 27th!

Following a prophetic preamble of a cuckoo bird feeding its own offspring, a portentous tone opens the film as we’re introduced to Tom (Eisenberg) and Gemma (Poots), a treescaper and schoolteacher living somewhere in the U.K. With modest means, the two pass by signs in a window for a place called the Yonder, which appears to be a 1950s wet-dream of identical green, cookie-cutter suburban tract housing. They enter the shop and meet Martin (Jonathan Aris), an annoyingly creepy and pushy but not menacing enough real-estate Agent who all but coerces the couple into taking a tour of The Yonder. Against their better sense, the couple agrees. When they arrive at an alarmingly uniform, baldly artificial TRUMAN SHOW setting with identical green housing, Tom and Gemma sense something amiss. When they try to leave the property, they end up driving in circles until night falls and they run out of gasoline (the shock of which lets you know these aren’t terribly bright people). They sleep in their house the first night, addressed at #9, which comes equipped with flavorless fruit and celebratory Champaign.

A box arrives the next day. In it is a newborn baby that the couple is told to raise if they want to escape the Yonder. Here is where the movie trades its arresting promissory premise for a 30-minute stretch of utter exasperation at best and downright disinterest at worst. We meet The Boy (Senan Jennings), who, in order to be as unnerving as possible, is given an adult voice-over throughout the whole film. That alone would be vexing after a while, but because the couple is tasked with placating The Boy, he goes into a half-dozen fits of shrill, top-of-the-lung screaming that makes you instantly crank the volume down and ask yourself, what in the everloving f*ck? Soon it seems as if The Boy is aging rapidly, as he suddenly makes the leap to adulthood, now played by actor Eanna Hardwicke. And yet, Tom and Gemma remain the same age. Gemma does what she can to continue raising The Boy, while Tom begins digging a hole in the backyard in his quest for escape. The metaphor isn’t terribly subtle, as the more he rejects his primary objective of parenthood, the bigger the hole Tom digs himself. Tom’s lack of cooperation with Gemma only widens the chasm.

While the movie raises more questions than it provides answers for much of the runtime, it’s made most fascinating by Imogen Poots’ turn as Gemma. She’s the one driven to the most painful emotional depths, the one who bears the biggest brunt of parental responsibility, and the one who gives the best performance in the film. Without her caliber of acting talent on display, the film would likely crumble before we’d even care to find out how it ends. Eisenberg is also up to the task, albeit in a far more reserved and staid manner than we’re used to seeing with his wiry energy. The premise, performances, and first 40-minutes of the film are among the movie's strongest suits. It’s when the movie has to reveal the machinations of the plot that it tends to fall a little flat, at least in the midsection. I kept waiting for and felt the movie was missing something when it never came, that the entire episode was some sort of virtual, couples hypnotherapy where they were tasked with working out their biggest issues – trust, communication, parenthood, passion, teamwork, etc. – in an immersive, tailor-made VR environment. I kept waiting for the narrative frame to pull back and reveal it was all a sort of futuristic techno-exercise meant to test the strength of Tom and Gemma’s relationship. Alas, no such luck.

Still, VIVARIUM boasts enough of a maddening and mind-mangling premise to warrant a watch. The plot is bolstered by the two strong lead performances, Poots in particular, and an immersive sense of an altered time and place inside a hellish maze. The first 40 and final 10 minutes atone for a flat and faltering second-act, just barely overcoming the abject annoyance, however intentional, of the loathsome Boy character. If you dig trippy, head-swimming sci-fi, you can definitely do worse than VIVARIUM.