#694 – Vivarium (2019)

Vivarium (2019)

Film review #694

Director: Lorcan Finnegan

SYNOPSIS: A Young couple view a house to buy in a strange suburbia, but when they try to leave, find they cannot. Eventually a box arrives with a newborn baby in it, and a note saying to raise it and be released. The couple have to put up with the rapidly growing child ads they try to adjust to life in this surreal, empty neighbourhood.

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Vivarium is a 2019 film. A young couple, Gemma and Tom, are looking for a house to buy and are shown a house in a suburban district by real estate agent Martin. While viewing the house, they find that Martin is gone, and when they try to leave the suburbs, they are unable to do so, always returning back to the house. After many days of trying to escape, they awaken one morning to a box with a newborn child, and a note that says they will be released if they raise the child. The child quickly grows up, causing friction between the couple as it imitates them and acts in an inhuman way. The plot mixes surrealism with a downbeat atmosphere whose message seems to be the cruel repetition of life and how we all repeat the same mistakes and are easily replaceable. Yes, it’s all a bit miserable and futile to be honest. I think the main issue with the film that is often pointed out is that it is simply too long: the whole film could have been easily condensed into twenty or thirty minutes and have been better for it. Stretching it out to ninety minutes adds in so much empty space, and also undermines the theme of repetition by not bringing the whole story back around quickly enough. So much of the film is padding out that throws the characters around every which way, making them, and fails to allow them to develop a coherent response to their situation.

There really feels like very little to break up the misery and futility in this film, which I suppose reflects the theme of the film, but I also feel like as a comment on life it needs a little something to counterbalance the drudgery. There’s one scene where the couple’s car starts working again and they dance to the music to give them a brief moment of joy, but that’s it. It doesn’t really add anything or provide the characters with anything. Again, so much of the film feels like padding. The surrealist aspect of the film also is vastly underutilised; it comes into play near the end when Gemma chases the grown-up Martin through the various instances of the suburb, along with different couples all experiencing the same sort of situation. It does, however, feel like a missed opportunity to explore this with more depth, as so much of the film is just very plain by comparison. It’s never really explained what the whole suburb and child raising element is composed of: whether they’re all aliens or something, and I don’t think that really matters. The whole film is not especially bad; it obviously has a message and theme, but it’s very nihilistic and empty. As mentioned, this could have been a much better short film that had a tight loop and made it’s point more effectively. As it is, Vivarium is far too lose with it’s story and characters, and fails to really lean into the more interesting parts to make it worthwhile.