Vivarium is Sci-fi Thriller which stars Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg and it tells the story of Gemma and Tom (Played by Poots and Eisenberg respectively) who decide they want to look for a new home in order to start a family. However, things take a turn for the worse when they cannot leave their new estate (accurately named Yonder) and they try to find a means of escape.
Ever since I saw the trailer for this film it tightly grabbed my interest it looked just like my sort of movie a weird one. Thrillers are a great genre because I love the feeling of not knowing what is going on and trying to piece it together myself and be potentially mind blown when it all comes together or figuring out that I am right. Vivarium does just that, this movie is a terrific watch its everything a good thriller should be it’s surreal but feels real it’s gripping and tense and genuinely shook and freaked me out.
The film explores the human psyche and how humans cope when put into isolation (something we all may be familiar within the next few months) and how survival instincts kick in despite living in an everyday and familiar environment and mixing horror elements with sci-fi perfectly to create one of the best movies I have seen this year and left me feeling a little unsettled.
Performances are great in this movie from both of our leads. Imogen Poots gives a stellar performance as Gemma as she slowly loses her mind and begins to accept the life they are living but also questioning her choices that clash with her partner Tom’s sometimes immoral but sensible choices. Eisenberg also gives a great performance in Tom of slipping away into insanity but in a different way from Poots’ Gemma, he starts to become a little sinister and the film portrays him as a threat and unstable right from the get-go of them trying to leave Yonder. However, this smartly portrays him in this way as all of his decisions are what the majority of people would do if this situation was to strike them, So even though he is shown to be a “bad person” per se he is the one we relate with the most.
By far the best performance though is from Senan Jennings as The Boy, this kid is the scariest, most freaky and annoying child I have ever seen in a film. There is one particular scene where he is doing impressions of ‘people’ he has met and it genuinely freaked me out. This movie is all sorts of weird but The Boy is the icing on an already freaky cake.
Visuals wise Vivarium looks great, it looks a little fake but I think that’s what the filmmakers were going for it adds to the style and plot of this film looking the way it does, for example, the clouds look pretty much identical (something they talk about in the film) the sky is a weird tone and all the house look the same. The film doesn’t rely too much on special effects but when it does use them they do look a little ‘Fake’ but I think that’s because what we are seeing is something that is real but is just re-made to fit it into this world and sort of fits in the uncanny valley for the benefit of the movie’s plot and visual style.
There is also so many hidden meanings within the dialogue and the visuals that contribute to the plot and help explain the ending (trust me it’s a little confusing) which for people who don’t catch them might think that the ending is a cop-out but I think the ending of the film is perfect and could not have done it better myself. For people who have seen Predestination, it’s kind of the same thing but just with different characters every scenario.
Final Score.
Title:Incredible
This movie is a great watch for fans of Sci-fi, Horror and Thrillers alike I was surprised to see that it only had a 69% on Rotten Tomatoes critics score and 32% Audience (as of 29th March 2020) this film is definitely on my list of best movies of the year so far and I guarantee it’s going to stay there.
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