Vivarium

Got a half decent idea for a short tv episode (but hey... leave out the cuckoo opening scenes then, no need to spell out the whole thing beforehand) but as a feature it's just an amateurish mess without much thought, balance in it's storytelling or coherence behind it (and yes it is "surreal" but that doesn't make it any better)

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.

Though 'Vivarium (2019)' isn't necessarily a bad in-the-moment viewing experience, it ultimately emerges as a frustrating and almost pointless endeavour. It requires a lot of patience, as most slow-burning things do, but it doesn't reward that patience with anything other than its end credits. Most obviously, the movie is an incredibly cynical and downbeat allegory for the cyclical nature of - I suppose - 'typical' suburban life. It basically posits that life is nothing but a prison (cheerful, I know). The problem is that its metaphor falls short in a few key areas, most notably in how it connects itself to the 'true' surface-level aspects of the story. The actual machinations of its plot are so poorly defined that they lack any real relevance. Plus, in the real world, there's this little thing called happiness, which the flick seems to forget. Of course, movies are allowed to be dark. It's just that they ought to amount to something, to use their darkness as a way to frighten or provoke. Rather than using its nihilism to create fear, the piece just puts it on display. The actual story keeps going in circles. There aren't many twists on the central situation. Even when something new does crop up, the picture tends to bat its ideas aside in an effort to create an increasingly hopeless vibe. Essentially, it's plagued by long stretches where 'nothing' happens. Now, you could argue that's the point: its leads are stuck in infinite suburbia, after all. Just because the characters are bored, though, doesn't mean the audience has to be. The narrative is elusive and strange, an odd mixture of the mundane and the otherworldly, but it isn't intriguing. It really should be, too. The movie's premise and, even, some of its plot points have a lot of potential. That's why it's so frustrating that the whole thing just feels like a waste of time. It's well-made and, as I mentioned, it can hold your attention, but it's the sort of thing you almost regret giving your attention to. There's not much else to say, really. It's just not that good. Oh, and it features one of the most annoying children ever put to screen (through no fault of the actor); he's not freaky or unsettling, he's just plain irritating. 4/10

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.