Forever Home: "Vivarium" a weird, intriguing, amusingly cynical suburban nightmare


Vivarium (2020)
97 min.
Release Date: March 27, 2020 (Digital & VOD)

“Vivarium” puts a bleak, Kafkaesque twist on the realtor’s phrase “forever home” and makes unwanted child-rearing a complete nightmare that thematically echoes David Lynch’s “Eraserhead.” Director Lorcan Finnegan and screenwriter Garrett Shanley keep things weird and close to the vest but make their concept identifiable with naturalistic performances from Imogen Poots (2019’s “Black Christmas”) and Jesse Eisenberg (2019’s “Zombieland: Double Tap”). An amusingly cynical, always intriguing allegorical hybrid of existential horror and science fiction about the uncontrollable cruelty and cyclicality of nature, “Vivarium” is like being vicariously trapped with its two characters in a waking nightmare through suburban purgatory. So deliberately absurd that one needs to laugh for relief, the film plays like an extended episode of “The Twilight Zone”—and a strong one at that—as well as an all-too-timely experiment in social isolation. Demanding the viewer to trust them with a worthwhile journey, the filmmakers take the right approach by not resorting to hand-holding and never having someone directly explain what it is that’s going on. It could be tighter, but traditional domesticity has rarely been this anxiety-inducing or looked this soulless.

Elementary schoolteacher Gemma (Imogen Poots) and gardener boyfriend Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) are in the market for a home. Though it isn’t what they had in mind, they check out the office of a suburban housing development called Yonder, located “near enough and far enough.” The couple is persuaded by odd, robotic real estate agent Martin (Jonathan Aris), who drives them through the cookie-cutter neighborhood of infinite homes. Every house seems identical, but Martin stops at unit #9, which he insists is not just a starter home, and gives them a tour. When they realize Martin has just up and left, Gemma and Tom get in their car and try leaving Yonder, but they seem to be caught in an endless loop, ending right back at #9. Their phones have no service and after driving around all night, their gas tank reaches empty. With no sign of other life around and no escape, Gemma and Tom make do with the tasteless champagne and strawberries they have, until they get a box of canned and dried foods delivered. After that, they get another delivery, a box with a baby inside, and it’s a boy. Gemma and Tom weren't quite ready to start a family, but they must raise the child in order to be released.

Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg make a copacetic couple as Gemma and Tom, believable in their occasional tiff and their love for one another. Poots gets to express higher emotions, as Gemma runs the gamut from maternal instincts and patience to pure aggravation. Her line reading, “I am not your mother,” gradually builds to a forlorn crescendo. Eisenberg starts out likably goofy, then flits between aggression and obsession when his Tom isn't having a nervous smoke. Even for the brief time he has on screen, Jonathan Aris’ bizarrely chipper turn as Martin is memorably creepy. Film newcomer Senan Jennings (whose dialogue has been dubbed in by an adult) is also off-kilter and effectively annoying as Young Boy, the baby who grows up in no time and screams like a high-pitched banshee until he is fed.

Before the film admittedly begins to lose some steam and paint itself into an inescapable corner, “Vivarium” is still highly effective, getting curiouser and curiouser and then finally packing a mean punch with downbeat nihilism. Working at peak level, Philip Murphy’s production design is inventive and impeccable in its artifice, the minty green, homogenous Yonder resembling the tract housing of Liplapper Lane from “Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat” with the sky full of perfectly fluffy clouds like those in the “Toy Story” cloud wallpaper. A warped third-act sequence, as Gemma illogically sinks through floors and ends up in other homes, is particularly visually striking, reminding of the more surreal dream sequences in any of the “A Nightmare on Elm Street” films. "Vivarium" couldn't come at a scarier time when not being able to leave the house isn't just nightmare fuel but a reality.

Grade: B

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