VIVARIUM is now on Digital VOD and available on Blu-ray and DVD May 12th
Review by Stephen Tronicek
Lorcan Finnegan’s Vivarium takes place in an ever-expanding closed loop of a suburb called Yonder. In Yonder, all the houses look the same as something has been copied and pasted over. That’s a pretty good way of describing the film. Sadly, after a strong start, Vivarium soon starts to copy and paste elements of sci-fi horror onto a weak frame propped up by great actors playing noncharacters and some incredible production design.
That frame is built strongly at the start. Gemma (Imogen Poots) and Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) are a couple looking for a new house. When they are lead into the Yonder development, they are left in house #9…and they can’t leave. Soon, whatever is running the place leaves them a “child” to raise.
This is a really interesting premise, one that could either go the nasty simple route or one that could expand into trying to say something about the heavy-handed suburban themes that the film’s premise necessitates. Vivarium opts for the nasty simple route, which there’s nothing wrong with. Many films that take the nasty simple route to access wider thematic themes work out just fine. In fact, that may be the preferred route to do so…but the good ones have a clear escalation of conflict and actual characters at the center of them.
This is where Vivarium starts to fall apart. While the wonderfully hazy production design creates a solid mood, two of the best performers working today throw what they can at the material, and Finnegan lends some solid direction it becomes apparent by the hour mark that Vivarium doesn’t have an interest in an escalating sense of conflict. The middle act starts well enough but soon crumbles as the repetition starts to expand.
It doesn’t help that certain elements of the film feel rehashed. The suburban imagery, the still hypnotic framing that doesn’t ask us to engage with the characters, and the creepy but sparse score all suggest better sci-fi horror films. By the time the film drags itself into the third act, it goes full-tilt in a way that seems overdone and far more terrifying elsewhere, even if the actors try to sell it.
Vivarium certainly tries its best to outrun the story problems at its center but it can’t quite. Instead of creepy and alive, it feels stagnant and reheated. By the time you get to the top of the frame, there’s nothing there. The final images of the film only seem to suggest meaning, rather than containing it.
2.5 out of 5
