A young couple (Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots) is looking for the perfect home. A strange real estate agent (Jonathan Aris) takes them to the surreal subdivision, Yonder, where all the houses are literally identical. While inspecting one of the modest homes, the agent disappears and leaves the couple alone in the otherwise vacant neighborhood. Inexplicably, the couple is unable to locate an exit to Yonder and soon find themselves trapped.
Following in the footsteps of David Lynch and Charlie Kaufman, Vivarium is a film that works completely on its own wavelength. It speaks in metaphors to express the dissatisfactions of monotony and the unrelenting will of nature. It mutates the banality of everyday life into a horror show filled with unanswered questions. Vivarium is never confusing to watch so much as it is completely and utterly mystifying. It’s like a Twilight Zone episode that never gives its plot twist away, a nightmare that you never fully wake up from.
Vivarium creates anxiety and tension out of the unknown. You always get the sense that director/co-story writer Lorcan Finnegan and writer Garret Shanley know exactly what’s going on. However, the movie’s intoxicating sense of mystery is reliant upon the fact that they never fully disclose it. There’s a full and intricate world presented in Vivarium, but the audience is thrown into it without explanation right along with the characters.
Eisenberg and Poots are both at their best. They play everything naturalistically, even when what they’re reacting to is anything but natural. Charming, funny, and obviously in love, they are the perfect everyday couple the audience can relate to. Their effortless chemistry provides a necessary warmth to the film’s otherwise chilly tone.
Finnegan exhibits intelligence and restraint behind the camera. Though Vivarium is plenty absurd and surreal, he always keeps things grounded and slightly detached, more observational than stylish. Many filmmakers have attempted something as strange as Vivarium, but few have pulled it off so elegantly.
Vivarium is impossible to categorize. Any expectations you have walking into it need to be thrown out the window. It’s a comedy. It’s a horror movie. It’s a piece of mind-bending science fiction. It’s also a highly unsettling examination of the human condition presented in the driest and least sentimental manner imaginable. Vivarium is several different movies concurrently existing in one, and they’re all hell-bent on challenging their audience to view everyday life from a point of view that can only be described as alien.
GRADE: A
