Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg can never be in a normal, happy movie together.
Where The Art of Self Defense was in a minimalist world run by toxic masculinity, the majority of Vivarium’s runtime places Poots and Eisenberg in a suburban hell. After being abandoned by their realtor during a tour of a family home, the duo discovers the eerie pastel green residential homes never end, and every time they try to run they always end up right where they were originally abandoned: at house number 9.
It’s a Twilight Zone-esque scenario set in a suburb stylized out of a Tim Burton movie, and the surreal plot gets stranger when a baby boy is plopped in a box outside on the curb, with a demand to raise it to be released. But the baby is not human. The child grows alarmingly fast (in 90 days he’s already at the height of a five-year-old) and speaks in an adult’s voice the seems to croak from strain. He’s a monster.
The surreal nature of Vivarium should lend to deeper pondering about what hell is (is it other people, or is it specifically raising children?). Rather, Lorcan Finnegan’s bizarre family drama never digs deeper than the surface (although, Eisenberg certainly digs a lot physically in the movie). It’s an overlong Black Mirror episode that forgot what the audience is supposed to be afraid of. Yes, we all know suburbia is trite, but your film doesn’t have to be as well.
Vivarium
U.S. Premiere
Mon., Sept 23, 11am
This article appears in September 20 • 2019.