Film Review: VIVARIUM (2019): A Creepy Thriller that Leaves Many Questions Unanswered

Vivarium Review

Vivarium (2019) Film Review, a movie directed by Lorcan Finnegan, and starring Imogen Poots, Jesse Eisenberg, Danielle Ryan, and Molly McCann. The definition of the word vivarium is ‘an enclosure, container, or structure adapted or prepared for keeping animals under seminatural conditions for observation or study or as pets; an aquarium or terrarium.” Vivarium takes this definition a harrowing step further, using humans in a weird, bizarre social experiment.

Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots play Tom and Gemma, a couple looking for the perfect house with the white picket fence. For a complete breakdown of the plot, click here. They visit the Yonder Development sales office and meet “Martin” — a creepy, robotic-like salesperson — sits behind the desk and encourages them to go see one of their bland, cookie-cutter homes. Okay, pump the brakes right here and let’s dive right into how unsettled I already am about this. Already, Gemma and Tom ignore their own gut feelings and decide to follow the robotic salesperson to the development. What possesses them to agree to see the homes is beyond me, but sometimes morbid curiosity — a great term to use here — gets the best of people. Plus, it’s in the script.

Ultimately, the couple gets trapped in this neighborhood labyrinth and is forced to raise a baby they are given — if that’s what you want to call him — in order to get out.

The movie’s biggest flaw is a lack of explanation throughout the entire movie. When Gemma and Tom are given a baby to raise from the world that Martin comes from, the only note they receive is “raise it and get out.” Not once in the movie is this world explained. We don’t learn where Martin comes from or where the baby comes from. I get that we can just assume things on our own, but ‘some’ explanation would have been welcome. Some introduction into a world that made such a huge development right in Gemma and Tom’s world without anyone acknowledge those who have gone missing before them.

When the young boy is watching television — which he does often — there is a loud, screechy, labyrinth-like show playing that makes absolutely no sense. We never get any information of what this is about or what any of it means. My assumption is that he’s being programmed while he’s watching it, but at one point I also thought that maybe it would have given Gemma and Tom a map out of the neighborhood. While Gemma asks the boy who became a man later, the explanation is vague.

When Gemma ultimately fights the boy-now-man and follows him underground when he runs away, she finds other women like her, who are trapped. No explanation. Oh, there are more people, I thought to myself. What is this world? I thought again. The movie ends with none of these questions ever getting answered.

Poots’ portrayal of Gemma and the effect that this mental torture has on her is well done and is very visible. Eisenberg’s portrayal is okay, but he has had stronger roles and I feel that Gemma outshines him in this movie. If you like watching The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock, A Clockwork Orange, or anything by Stanley Kubrick, you’ll find that this movie is a giant mish-mash of all of their techniques and filmmaking skills.

Rating: 6/10

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