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Vivarium

A Quarantine of A Different Sort

By Drew JaehnigPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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So you’re locked up in your house wondering when the madness outside will end. You’re bored; you have an exaggerated case of cabin fever. Some of you probably have high anxiety about your future, the state of your finances, and the world economy. It’s understandable, and sometimes we need a reminder that it could be worse. I mean, Gemma and Tom would like to leave the house too. Indeed leave their ugly little subdivision, but even that is not possible. They have no games to play, no books to read, no TV to watch and their child is from Hell.

Such is the premise of Vivarium (2019), a new science-fiction thriller from Lorcan Finnegan starring Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots. Set in present-day Britain, Gemma and Tom are a young couple looking for nice affordable housing. This quest leads them to a new development called Yonder, where the houses are priced right but are a hideous shade of green. The young couple is talked into visiting a unit by the very creepy salesperson, and next thing we know, they are driving into a sea of hideous green houses. Every house just like the last.

Touring the unit, they find it has all the amenities they want but is still unsettling in some plastic, inhuman ill-defined way. A young couples dream at this price, so why does it feel all so wrong somehow? While discussing the oddity, they realize the salesperson has vanished. Gemma and Tom then attempt to leave themselves, and that is when they discover the twilight zone truth of it all. There is no way out of the neighborhood just endless miles of uninhibited green houses, and no matter which way they drive, they always wind up back at unit 9.

Fruitlessly spending several days attempting to escape, the couple collapses at unit 9, and that’s when they discover the baby with a mysterious message stating raise the baby, and you will be released. This is no ordinary baby either, for those parents stuck at home with their little terrors, this child makes even the worst behaving children seem like little darlings. From here, Lorcan Finnegan and Garrett Shanley take us on an unpleasant journey that is, at times, funny, odd, terrifying, and inexplicable. The film is in the spirit of the best of the Twilight Zone and will stick with you for days.

The team of Lorcan Finnegan and Garrett Shanley are relatively new to the scene. Still, Vivarium is in keeping with the themes of their other works, such a Foxes (2012) and Without Name (2016), all weirdly unpleasant but entertaining and imaginative. Indeed that is probably the most compelling thing about Vivarium is that there is something grander going on beyond unit 9. We are given glimpses and hints of the underlying truth enough to suck you in entirely and wanting to know more. You’ll be craving a greater reveal that is never to come.

Eisenberg and Poot give solid performances on the effects of isolation on human’s as we watch them destroy their relationships and themselves in their quest to be free of the child-monster and the neighborhood. It’s a shame but also somewhat fitting that this movie should be released on March 20 just as the worldwide quarantine is hitting its stride. If you are depressed about your isolation, this movie might make it better or could make it significantly worse. Perhaps it should come with a warning label? In any case, the film is the most imaginative thing this writer has seen this year, and it shouldn’t be passed up.

Intellectual Sustenance – 4 Stars

Pure Entertainment – 4 Stars

Emotional Impact – 3 Star

Vivarium 2019 – Rated R – Runtime 1 hr 37 minutes

https://youtu.be/U3Xy2x9NDrw

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