Vivarium (2019)

Directed by: Lorcan Finnegan
Written by: Garret Shanley, Lorcan Finnegan
Starring: Danielle Ryan, Imogen Poots, Jesse Eisenberg, Molly McCann, Senan Jennings

VIVARIUM(2019)
Directed by Lorcan Finnegan

If there’s such thing as the western capitalist dream, as in a socially accepted aspiration not limited to America, I suspect it’d be a lot like what the couple in this want. Work hard ‘til you’re in your thirties, find yourself a partner, buy a charming starter home somewhere in the suburbs then have a kid. However, the burbs and horror/ horror adjacent movies make for bad bedfellows, with many filmmakers juxtaposing the sheen exterior with a dark underbelly. David Lynch maybe did it best, from the moment his Boy Scout protagonist Jeffrey found a human ear in the soil. But stuff like Society, Elm Street and The Burbs have played with this tension of secrets between the big houses and danger where there ought to be none.

In Vivarium, that danger comes from settling: a middle-class malaise caused by the monotony of everyday life. The characters struggle with an existential hunt for meaning when, on paper, they have what they should want: a place of their own, plus a neverending supply of food, and even a baby boy, delivered by post. But it’s not what Gemma (Poots), and tree-surgeon Tom (Eisenberg) want: a teacher and a tree-surgeon respectively, who only did the viewing out of curiosity. The house is a new-build, in a development called Yonger: one of a long line of identical pea-soup green houses. After a look around, the creepy estate agent vanishes, and they find themselves unable to leave: all roads lead back to Number 9. Well, they were told it’s a forever house. Their rapidly ageing kid (Jennings) is also a little brat who, between screams, echoes back every argument they have in the oddest voice. Like a sponge, he absorbs their worst behaviours.

I’ll save you a google search, and tell you the title refers to a small container that’s used for observing animals under semi-natural conditions. This metaphor is the main point of the film: confinement in a suburban nightmare. After some unsuccessful attempts to escape their luxury prison, both characters adopt different coping strategies. She tries to learn to love their awful adopted son, who is both their captor and responsibility, while he takes to digging a hole in the yard: as blunt a metaphor for a pointless, repetitive job as I’ve seen onscreen. Symbolism like this runs all the way through Vivarium, making it unfortunate that a film about banality is itself so pedestrian. Think an obnoxious teenager, who saw part of Joker, telling you why they’d hate growing up to be you. When the boy gets flipped off, so too does the viewer. Stiving = conformity. Relationships? Don’t bother: they’re your cellmate more than your soulmate. The burbs? Bad. Kids? Creepy. And property? Kill yourself.

Yet peppered among the many moments of quiet despair are limited instances of joy and harmony coming: dancing in the headlights, occasional sexual relations or sentences that start “remember when?” If there’s a message to it, I suppose it’s this: the dream life is just that, and cold comfort can never make up for something genuine. Still, like the excesses of Black Mirror, its scatter-gun approach to saying ‘this is bullshit’ means you finish with little idea of what authenticity would or could look like. It’s perhaps less in yer face than The Hunt, but arguably with even less to say. Ironically, beneath the surface, there isn’t much going on, which brings me to the first big plus. Vivarium is visually astounding, with the stylised use of CG giving their development an uncanny kid’s show aesthetic in which, among other things, all the clouds look like perfect clouds. It’s an effective contrast to their easy-living Hell. Director Finnegan can do claustrophobic well, making the maze of identikit homes seem genuinely oppressive. Both leads do decent performances too, with Poots’ hunt for connection most of the emotional weight. Whereas Eisenberg is mutually pathetic and frightening when he lurches between barely restrained rage and fury. Needless to say, I wouldn’t fancy their chances in the current lockdown.

It isn’t all doom and gloom though. Much of the humour lands, with the sardonic, if barely subtextual, satire providing genuine chuckles – even if like like our heroes it goes nowhere. I also laughed almost every time their nameless child spoke in that darn voice. Still, in another parallel to Gemma and Tom, I felt like I’d seen it before – in better films. It’s maybe worth viewing it once, but I doubt I’ll be buying.

Vivarium is out now on VOD.