Vivarium

I believe the point of the film is that it's pointless, a gloomy cycle that repeats itself regardless of anyone foolish enough to try and stop it. It's nihilistic, but also does not seek to convey anything to the audience. It's an intriguing story that begins and ends, and in the end was nothing more than a thought experiment without merit.

Vivarium is another mushroom-trip inducing film. If you like slow, artsy, sci-fi, metaphor-for-life type films that leave you with a foreboding sense of dread and could possibly test your mental state after a year of COVID ... then this movie is for you. It is very well acted and I think it achieved what the director set out to achieve, but it may not make sense to you and might leave you feeling like you wasted 90 mins of your life, even during lockdown. If you do watch it, I suggest you come back and read some of the spoiler reviews here on IMDB to help make sense of it all. You might just find you liked it after all.

It started out fine. The tone reminded me a bit of Cube (1997) and I have to say that I was intrigued for the first 30 minutes or so. But in spite of being a mere 90 minute long movie, it drags. Which reminds me of Richard Kelly's The Box (2009). Both movies have an interesting premise, which might be enough to fill more than an episode of a show like The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror, but not an entire feature film. The symbolism is very heavy handed and could have done with a bit more finesse.

I thought Vivarium was a nice surprise from a movie I didn't expect much of. The story is completely refreshing, i can't recall watching another movie with a similar story so that's already a positive point. There are too much movies with repetitive stories so to see one with an interesting plot it gets my attention. It's a weird story, so if you don't like the bizarre (that's those with the negative reviews) then you should just not watch it, you will be disappointed. Vivarium is the kind of movie that makes me talk out loud during the viewing, what I would do if I was in that case and so on. The plot is intriguing, the decor very minimalistic but that definitely adds to the odd ambiance, the cast is very small but good. Once you're in the story you defintely want to know what the hell is happening and where they are going to? Maybe the end could have been a bit more elaborated but overal it's a movie that deserves a better rating, just for creativity alone.

Unfortunately there's not enough substance here to fill up an entire feature film. There's A LOT of padding. For example the scene where they're listening to ska music in the car. It doesn't add anything much to the movie. It feels like the actors were told to just make up a dialogue on the spot.

For a movie of this kind to sustain our attention for a full hour and a half there needs to be more than just the initial concept. Unfortunatley there's not. There's no twist. There's no second act. There's a really interesting "nightmare"-type scene towards the end which feels for a moment like the movie's finally going somewhere. But then it dissipates and we're left with nothing much once more.

Why didn't the protagonists try and decipher the book that was delivered? Surely that was a vital clue? What caused their health to fail? Why didn't they try breaking into other houses on the street? I wanted these characters to fight to the death but they really went out with a wimper.

Could have been great.... but wasn't. Watch "the Platform" instead if you want surreal horror with a message.