Vivarium 2019 Ignores It’s Strongest Moral Question In The Film

Impressions of the FIlm

Vivarium's scheduled movie theater release date was on May 18th, 2019.

I was intrigued by the %72 positive on Rotten Tomatoes and hook line:

A young couple looking for the perfect home find themselves trapped in a mysterious labyrinth-like neighborhood of identical houses.

-IMDB

And in light of the timing it had, a film about isolation at home (Even at the behest of an alien species) struck a chord with a lot of people.

Production of Vivarium(2020)

Director: Lorcan Finnegan

This may be defined as a breakout film for the director Lorcan Finnegan. An independent filmmaker from Ireland. This film has received more international recognition than that of his previous projects.

He received acclaim for his short Foxes (2011), and the only other feature-length film he's produced before Vivarium was Without Name (2016) had medium reception. Both are thrillers of the mind with some supernatural event settings.

Emma: Imogen Poots

Emma is a children school teacher who shows patience, being willing to explain something to a child who doesn't understand. She's the organizer and the responsible one in the relationship.

The actress Imogen has participated in many well-known films. Films like V for Vendetta (2005), 28 Weeks Later (2007), Me and Orson Wells (2008), Need for Speed (2014), and the reboot of Black Christmas (2019).

Tom: Jesse Eisenberg

Tom is a bit of a flake. He's impulsive, doesn't have consistent work, but likes working as a contractor for odd jobs making him useful in many fixer-upper scenarios of being intuitive. I personally didn't like Tom and felt like Emma could do better.

Jesse's resume is massive, frankly, it's surprising to me they put Imogens name as first billing on the movie poster. (It's a thing in Hollywood.) Jesse was a breakout star on the Aaron Sorkin blockbuster film The Social Network playing Mark Zuckerberg.

Jesse has also been part of the DC universe as the latest Lex Luther. Now You See Me (2013) was a big hit and made a lot of box office. Zombieland (2009) while goofy, is still culturally followed and loved today.

So he's clearly a talented guy but brings in the box office. But his character in this film wasn't written strongly enough. I had a sincere opposing feeling to his character for most if not all the film.

The Child (Young): Senan Jennings

The Child (Adult): Éanna Hardwicke

The child character is difficult to explain. He is the sole reason the two main characters are placed in this house to raise him up. We'll get more into it later in this article.

Éanna is likely best known for the recent television show Smother (2021-present) as Joe Ryan.

The Story Set-Up

The very first scene makes a point of a child seeing dead baby birds on the ground, and explaining to the audience that Coo Coo Birds lay eggs in other nests and push out the competition.

The story takes place in a suburb somewhere in England where our two main characters "Tom" (Jesse Eisenberg) and "Emma" (Imogen Poots) have gone house hunting. They aren't married but are willing to take the next step of living together in a committed home.

The Real Estate office they enter is humble, if not very simplistic. A muted green and overly calm staff. Think more "Stepford Wives" in attitude. Or a flight attendant that gives you such a calm delivery you think they're about to snap and stab the next person who asks them for a blanket on the plane.

Tom and Emma give meaningful and almost mocking glances at one another as they begin to look from room to room. However, at one point the creep-calm real estate agent leaves them abruptly abandoning them in the home.

Tom and Emma shrug it off and go to leave the home and drive off. Only they are caught in a labyrinth of suburb streets of homes that all look the same, and cannot find their way out. In fact, no matter what they do, the street brings them back right in front of the furnished show home.

Hopeless after running out of gas, and stuck they begin to worry, but a mysterious package is left on the street for them. Inside is a baby. The set up seemed interesting, and I felt like I could keep watching to see the conflict and the coming result.

Overtones of the Themes

The Lie The Main Characters Believe

As the film progressed with the issue of the growing child, the sensation of being stuck in an alien "Terrarium" "Aquarium" or rather "Vivarium"... I wanted to see the lie the character believes to be challenged or grown from.

This was a harder thing to pin down about this movie. Was the lie the main character believed "If I work hard enough I can escape"? Or was the lie they believed supposed to be "Raising the child is the wrong/right thing?"

Story structurally neither of those character conflicts apply strongly enough to be justified. A character "Lie" they believe, must be central to who they are BEFORE the catalyst happens.

The lie in Minority Report for example with Tom Cruise, is that he believes the Pre-Cogs will never see a future that won't happen, there is no other outcome possible. This is challenged when the Pre-Cogs predict he will murder someone in the next two days and he begins to question his moral center of his humanity in free will and choosing for himself.

Lessons from the Screenplay Youtube channel have an amazing full explanation on this story structure support system, and how crucial it is in order to see the main character grow:

For Vivarium, I don't know if the lie the character believed is fully formed, but if I had to take a stab at it.

The "Lie" was...

"They're a couple who are ready for the next step of moving in together, and considering the next steps in life."

This lie isn't supported well through the rest of the film. It's heavily implied in the beginning, but there are so many cracks in their relationship early on even before stepping into the real estate agent's office. So they cant have believed it all that much.

But even then, the characters' beliefs diverge almost immediately.

When Emma tells Tom not to kill the child and the core beliefs of the two of them are in direct conflict of making a large life-changing decision. This was a very memorable scene. The reason that is, in my opinion, is because it supported challenging the first lie Emma told herself about moving in with Tom.

But... from there, the story spins out into too much "Fluff" world-building. As they try to figure out ways to escape the infinitely repeating neighborhood they live in. Emma and Tom have grown weaker and the Child grows way too fast.

Emma leaning into her human nature and childrens school background does give it a go. She tries to connect to the child and discipline him, teaching him what she knows about the world even when he doesn't speak back.

However shortly after Emma does give up on the idea of nurturing the Child, and both Emma and Tom walk on pins and needles around the Child or he will scream for literal hours.

For Emma, life living with Tom is hell because of the child, not necessarily about anything between the development of the two as a couple. And this animosity resolves about halfway through the movie. This makes what character arc payout available really disappointing.

What The Lie Should Have Been

The "Lie" That the film should have given was

"I fear parenthood changing my life, taking my identity and free will."

Emma and Tom's fear of parenthood is the strongest motivational question they face when debating to let the child die. This would have been bonded stronger if it was addressed ahead of going into the home suburbia. They're honestly a very average couple with quips and nitpicks at one another even before any difficulty happens.

There are themes around a CooCoo egg infiltrating the nests of other birds pushing out others' eggs. If you're trying to communicate in this film that "THIS IS ABOUT PARENTING", then... your main characters need to have a penny for their thoughts on the subject or it didn't happen.

Nature Vs. Nurture & CooCoo Birds

This film worked way too hard to align itself with the idea of "Nature for one may be a nightmare for another". But what I'd really hoped for was the argument of "Nature Versus Nurture", if they can change the boy's mind by our own humanity?

Especially as at the beginning Emma took such great care in helping a child who encountered the baby birds to understand death is an occurrence of life.

Could she be the bridge to help the boy challenge whatever species he is and break the cycle due to her nurturing self? NOPE. We'll just throw that all out the window for some more scenes of Tom going crazy and digging a hole. The Child is a lost cause and they don't see him as a way to help them.

Instead, the theme is Nature is a Bitch when you're on the receiving end, isn't it?

There was no debate about it, this film leaned hard into "Nature" and it will refuse to change its course. I don't agree with that approach. I think it's too narrow. The byproduct of that is what made many of the choices the main character made to attempt escape as rather pointless.

Don't get me wrong I'm all for good "Dungeon Sense", & try to be clever on your situation scenarios, but this was endless. The film spent TONS of time about what thing they could do.

Only for it to predictably fail, and fail A LOT. So much so that I did start looking at the streaming timestamp to see how much of the film was left and wondering where it could even go after a certain point.

Conclusion

I'm sorry, This film is not to my taste. And that's ok. People also really like it as a mind-bender, and that's also ok. I think the universe trying to be communicated has too many holes for me to just let go and enjoy the story as is.

I like mind benders and can write off some things that are missed. But for me, this film had too many misses for me to be entertained.