Category: Drama

Music

Rated: MMusic

Directed by: Sia

Screenplay by: Sia, Dallas Clayton

Produced by: Vince Landay, Sia

Starring: Kate Hudson, Leslie Odom Jr, Maddie Ziegler.

Music opens onto an eye-poppingly bright yellow stage set, where a carefree girl in headphones twirls to the rhythms of African inspired music. When that scene cuts to the bedroom of the sleeping girl as she begins to awaken, the musical sequence resolves into a window onto the vivid dreams of an autistic girl who can only manage to shamble around in her waking life.

Music is the story of two sisters, Zu (Kate Hudson) and Music (Maddie Ziegler) Zu’s kid sister, each unable to take care of themselves. Zu, growing up with a ‘big’ Junkie for a mother, has followed in her parent’s footsteps, making a career for herself dealing drugs and abusing whatever substances she can scarf down. But Zu is failing badly in her profession, so when the film opens on her she is snoozing her way through a drug and alcohol diversion program. There are no flights into musical fantasy for her, just the cons she is trying to pull when she is awake.

Unlike Zu who has been eking out a life on the margins, the community has taken Music to its heart. Even though Music can barely speak, the news vendor collects clippings of dogs for her and her neighbours each in their own way all look out for her as she shuffles around the inner city streets. Until her beloved Grandmother is taken by a stroke, Music has been comfortably settled in a charmed world. But that is all about to change with Zu coming to take over her care.

Although Music is a heartwarming story and a surprise delivery in the final scene adds the perfect touch, the story takes a long while to take off. There is a fundamental conflict as to whether the film is a musical or a drama. This is particularly so in the early stages before we have had a chance to get know Music and engage with her. Although, the musical interludes have been designed to create a bridge between the mute and ungainly exterior of the girl and the lively person she is within, they slow the drama and for me they were overly long.

At the same time, there is a lot to like about this film and, ultimately, patience will be rewarded. The acting is outstanding, the drama beautifully crafted, the dialogue sparkling and the music sequences improve as they go on to reflect more conflicted inner realities.

Before it has even opened here, Music has sparked controversy with some arguing that the title role should have been played by someone genuinely affected by autism. The film clearly means a great deal to all involved in its production, including a surprise cameo by hard rocker and activist Henry Rollins. I wasn’t expecting that.

But, perhaps I should have been expecting the unexpected in such a quirky film where dealers have found a way to ply their drugs as an act of charity, so now, despite their past misdeeds, they are expecting to go to heaven or at least find their way to paradise.

The Dry

Rated: MA15+The Dry

Directed by: Robert Connolly

Produced by: Bruna Papandrea, Jodi Matterson and Steve Hutensky, Robert Connolly, Eric Bana

Screenplay Written by: Harry Cripps and Robert Connolly

Based on the Book Written by: Jane Harper

Starring: Eric Bana, Genevieve O’Reilly, Keir O’Donnell, John Polson, Julia Blake, Bruce Spence, Matt Nable, William Zappa, James Frecheville, Joe Klocek, Claude Scott-Mitchell, Sam Corlett, BeBe Bettencourt, Miranda Tapsell.

The tone of, The Dry is set in the opening moments: from above, the landscape looks barren, drawing the eye like water into drought-stricken dirt.

A baby cries.

The floorboards of a farmhouse are soaked in blood.

On the back of a note to attend the funeral of a childhood friend, Federal Agent Aaron Falk (Eric Bana) reads, You lied.

The Dry is a mystery of two crimes separated by twenty years that slowly unfolds in the town of Kiewarra.  A town where a spark could start a blaze, a town suffering 324 days without rain.

It’s a country town that holds secrets revealed in the subtleties as Aaron gets caught up investigating a suicide murder case while his own past catches up, locals banging on his door in the middle of the night.

What happened all those years ago?  Why do the locals hate Aaron returning to his childhood home?

What happened to Ellie Deacon (BeBe Bettencourt)?

It’s a slow and quiet mystery that was gripping because of the many moments that ground the story, the local school principle planting a tree in memory of the dead, a kind gesture but bitter sweet: ‘God knows what I’m supposed to tell the kids when it dies,’ he says, knowing the tree will die like so many others in the never ending drought.

And there are so many layers to this story, handled with care by director Robert Connolly – all those subtle moments hinting at character, questioning the action of something as simple as closing a glass sliding door.

There’s some light moments to offset the foreboding drive of drama, from classic characters like the memorable publican, McMurdo (Eddie Baroo) – the pub overrun with customers (said with tongue-in-cheek) or the order of the sea food basket a risky choice being oh so far from the ocean.

Alongside a solid storyline, it’s those moments that nod to the Australian countryside that ground the film in the authentic and is such a pleasure to watch on the big screen.

The landscape reminded me of childhood growing up in country Victoria, those century old gum trees, finding that special spot, that magic tree while watching the dust form whirlwinds across the paddock.

The backbone of the film is Aaron returning home, the flashbacks to those days of growing up and swimming in the river with friends.  Director Robert Connolly explains, “If I was […] to go right to the crux of THE DRY, it’s about the emotional impact of returning to the place you grew up.”

The landscape is captured beautifully here (filmed in the Wimmera Region), the past when the river was flowing.  The tragedy of a young death.  The return to childhood memories to now see the town dry, the once flowing river empty.

What sums up the film for me is the use of the soundtrack – there to amplify those dramatic moments, but noticed even more when absent, with only the sound of the wind.

Overall, I found, The Dry to be a quiet film, mysterious with a subtle slow burn, that’s gripping in the telling.

A Call To Spy

Rated: MA Call To Spy

Directed by: Lydia Dean Pitcher

Written by: Sarah Megan Thomas (original screenplay)

Produced by: Sarah Megan Thomas p.g.a.

Edited by: Paul Tothill (BAFTA nominee)

Starring: Sarah Megan Thomas, Stana Katic, Radhika Apte, Linus Roache and Rossif Sutherland.

It’s your light that lights the world

Inspired by true events, A Call To Spy follows two civilians recruited by Churchill’s new spy agency’s (Special Operations Executive (SOE)) Vera Atkins (Stana Katic), to become the first female spies in the recently fallen France during WWII.

Nazi domination in Europe 1941 asks for extreme measures to disrupt Occupation, to create rebellion, to set France on fire.

Virginia Hall (Sarah Megan Thomas, also producer and writer) is to lead on the ground.

Noor Inayat Khan (Radhika Atpe), the fastest wireless in her unit, to radio the messages.

Operation Brigitte (Virginia’s byline as alias journalist: Brigitte LeContre) is born.

It’s inspiring to watch the courage of the unlikely spies being trained: Virginia the rich American with a wooden leg who dreamt of being a diplomat, and the Muslim pacifist, a descendant of Indian Royalty and believer of peace and truth who refuses to give up, who has resolved to resist the Nazi Occupation of the country she grew up in and loved, France.

The film sheds new light on the hideous grip Nazi Germany had over the French population, the lack of food, forced labour – the betrayal of friends bred out of desperation.

It’s not that the film becomes too bloody or gory, but I always find war movies a difficult watch.

The seeming lightness of, A Call To Spy at the beginning drew me into the exciting world of rescue and secret messages; the danger of getting caught, yet escaping.

But as the war progresses, the deeper the conflict and the more at stake.

As mistakes are made the Colonel Maurice Buckmaster (Linus Roache) admits the horror when doing your best just isn’t enough.  When making the wrong decision means lives are lost.

The task given to Britain’s amateur spies is described by the Colonel as a lonely courage.

So the reality of war, the murder, the betrayal and the secrets even amongst the spies is revealed as the sadness and horror of the brutality of war continues.  Which is why I find watching war movies difficult.  It gets me every time.  The anger.

Yet, I got swept up in this story, which provoked admiration of the courage to keep going, no matter the danger.

Bon courage.

Which shows the quality of the cast and the restraint by director, Lydia Dean Pilcher.

If you’re sensitive to those war provoked emotions.  This one sneaks up.

Virginia Hall is the subject of three 2019 biographies. Her prosthesis, Cuthbert, is named on the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to OSS (precursor to CIA). Noor Inayat Khan was recently commemorated with Britain’s prestigious Blue Plaque.

A Christmas Gift From Bob

Rated: PGA Christmas Gift From Bob

Directed by: Charles Martin Smith

Written and Executive Produced by: Garry Jenkins

Produced by: Adam Rolston, Tracy Jarvis, Steve Jarvis, Andrew Boswell and Sunny Vohra

Starring: Luke Treadaway, Bob the Cat, Kristina Tonteri-Young, Phaldut Sharma.

Based on the autobiographical books about James Bowen and a stray cat (Bob) that befriended him on the streets of London, A Christmas Gift From Bob is the sequel to the international Indie film, A Street Cat Named Bob”

While James was homeless and addicted to heroin, the cat’s relentless affection and companionship eventually inspired James to make a go of life.

And the third book of the series, A Gift From Bob documents one of the last Christmases James and his ginger cat spent together before they became famous.

Based on this moment in time, the film opens on a glamorous premiere, launching the first book, following James (Luke Treadaway returning in his role) and Bob (starring as himself) curled around his shoulder, James wondering why he’s there.

He’s meant to write a second book – it’s expected soon and he has no idea where or how to start.

How do you continue a story of redemption once you’re off the streets?  What comes next, except wondering how to keep paying the bills and have food in the fridge?

And what happens when Animal Welfare start investigating, asking questions about James’ ability to care for his friend and companion: the cat who saved his life?

It’s all a little bit inspirational because through hardship there’s growth.

And a hell of a lot of light cheese filled with those aw, moments.  But it’s good cheese, well, absolutely pushing the Bob-the-cat: it’s from Bob, this song is about Bob, this is a card… from Bob…

Cue sweet soundtrack on repeat.

But it’s a Christmas card from Bob as he sits there on his blanket, next to James as he hands out those cards to the other characters in the story, the busker and his cat creating a community of people through their support of the pair.

It’s a movie about what Christmas means to people and how hard it can be for people who have lost their loved ones or have nothing or no one to celebrate, so the film pulls those heart strings, giving those clichéd moments meaning like, what goes around comes around.  And stronger together.

Because like Bea (Kristina Tonteri-Young ) constant friend and supporter of James says: Christmas isn’t a season, it’s feeling.

Bob has now passed.  So it’s kinda sweet to see him there on the screen for everyone to share.

Here’s what James had to say: ”Bob saved my life. It’s as simple as that. He gave me so much more than companionship. With him at my side, I found a direction and purpose that I’d been missing. The success we achieved together through our books and films was miraculous. He’s met thousands of people, touched millions of lives. There’s never been a cat like him. And never will again. I feel like the light has gone out in my life. I will never forget him.”

Honest Thief

Rated: MHonest Thief

Written and Directed by: Mark Williams

Produced by: Mark Williams, Myles Nestel, Tai Duncan, Craig Chapman and Jonah Loop

Production Designer: Tom Lisowski

Editor: Michael P Shawver

Music by: Mark Isham

Starring: Liam Neeson, Kate Walsh, Jeffrey Donovan, Jai Courtney, Anthony Ramos, Robert Patrick and Jasmine Cephas Jones.

‘I met a woman.’

Honest Thief is a classic formula that plays-out like a movie I felt like I’d seen before.

Set in Boston (including that Boston accent and typical dirty cops), the In-And-Out Bandit, AKA Tom Carter (Liam Neeson) has been robbing banks without leaving a trace (hence the nickname and yes, he doesn’t like it either) for eight years.

Until he meets Annie (Kate Walsh – the actress from Grey’s Anatomy.  She looks nothing like Dr. Addison Montgomery here as Annie and that’s OK.  She’s well-cast).

It’s a real meet-cute, setting the tone of the film – a romantic crime drama set to the gravitas of Liam Neeson’s deep-bass voice.

Tom wants to the do the right thing.  To build his relationship with Annie on an honest foundation (see the title), and be an, ‘Honest Thief’.

After twelve bank robberies over seven states and nine million in cash, Tom wants to turn himself in.

‘He met a woman,’ Agent Meyers (Jeffrey Donovan) explains.

‘Poor guy,’ replies Agent Baker (Robert Patrick).

The robber-turned-soft romantic overtones of this film are somewhat offset by the humour of this Agent Baker, desperately trying not to be bitter after being left with a dog (instead of a house) after his divorce.

And we get some dirty cop crime thrown in with some explosive action.

Writer and director Mark Williams (A Family Man (2016)) states, “It has the action, the thrills, car chases, guns going off, things exploding. But at the heart of it, it’s a love story, and to me that’s the most important thing.”

So, Honest Thief isn’t one of those shoot-em-up action flicks, or crime thriller.

This is more Tom proving he’s the In-And-Out bandit – an excuse to show some strategy in the film – then after being double-crossed by dirty cops, proving he might be a robber, but he’s no killer.

At one point Tom’s asked, ‘What do you want?’

‘To prove my innocence.’

Because as stated above, he’s met a woman.

It’s just not that exciting.

But the addition of Robert Patrick as Agent Baker (Robert Patrick) and his increasing affection for his fluffy companion, Tassy lifted the tone and added that extra bit of humour.

‘Poor guy.’

Hilarious.

Deerskin

Rated: MA15+Deerskin

Directed and Written by: Quentin Dupieux

Photography, Editing: Quentin Dupieux

Art and Set Direction: Joan Le Boru

Sound: Guillaume Le Braz, Alexis Place, Gadou Naudin, Cyril Holtz

Starring: Jean Dujardin, Adele Haenel

French with English subtitles

‘I swear never to wear a jacket as long as I live.’

Deerskin first introduces Georges (Jean Dujardin) wearing a green jacket with three plastic buttons.  He parks on the wrong side of the petrol bowser.  And looking at his reflection in the car window he frowns at what he sees.  Then he flushes the jacket in the public toilet.

Yep, Georges is losing it.

The music flares.

And I think to myself, I already like this movie.

The film is character driven and continues to follow Georges.  But there’s another character in this movie.  A jacket.  We meet the beast.  The new jacket: 100% Deerskin.

The way the film flashes to a live deer in the wilderness seals it somehow.  Just how cool the jacket is.  But It’s not. It’s made from the skin of this beautiful innocent animal (see previous flash to said deer in the wilderness).  And, it’s got… fringes.  But Georges LOVES it: ‘Style de tueur (Killer style),’ he says, looking in the mirror.

It just makes me grin.

After that Georges keeps driving.

‘You’re no-where Georges.  You no longer exist.’  That’s what his ex-wife tells him, over the phone.

Georges ends up in the bar of a small village, where he meets the barmaid, Denise (Adele Haenel).  She’s been burnt by love too.  But Georges is a brand-new man in his deerskin jacket.  He tells Denise he’s a film maker.

It makes sense to say he’s a film maker.  He’s been recording film all day, so it’s kinda the same.  ‘No it’s not,’ says the jacket.

Instead of getting to know an available woman, Georges gets to know the jacket as his relationship with this 100% deerskin jacket becomes the subject of Georges’ movie to be.

Killer style indeed.

Director and writer Quentin Dupieux says, ‘I wanted to film insanity.’

And Georges has lost it.  But wow, he’s really enthusiastic about it.

The way Georges insanity is shown is somehow shocking and hilarious.

It’s the same dark humour used in, The Lobster, but less confronting even though there’s more killing…  And this whole jacket business is just so ticklish.

Jean Dujardin (who plays Georges in the film) explains it’s Quentin’s use of space that creates the comedy, ‘It’s in those moments of hesitation that the comedy and drama blend. You’re right on the borderline. All those scenes, for example, in which Georges demands money, or can’t pay. Quentin takes the time to stretch out the sense of malaise, to allow for some lingering doubt. Is Georges going to turn violent? Weep? Laugh? You never know what will happen. Time stands still for a moment, and those little agonies make me want to die laughing.’

Then there’s Georges dream in life – for him, it’s all about wearing this deerskin jacket.  To be the only person wearing… a jacket.  It doesn’t make sense.  But from the perspective of Georges, as he makes a film about his dream, it kinda does.

The character Denise gets it.  She reckons the jacket is like a shell to protect the wearer from the outside world.

I think it’s because Georges hates who he used to be, wearing that green blazer with the three plastic buttons.

Or perhaps Deerskin is just a weirdo movie that’s put together in a way that somehow makes sense.

Whether you analyse the layers or not, I was thoroughly absorbed and entertained from start to finish.

Like Denise says, ‘I’m into it.’

The Wretched

Rated: MA15+The Wretched

Written and Directed by: The Pierce Brothers (Brett Pierce, Drew Pierce)

Produced by: Chang Tseng, Ed Polgardy

Music Composed by: Devin Burrows

Starring: John-Paul Howard, Piper Curda, Zarah Mahler, Azie Tesfai, Kevin Bigley, Blane Crockarell, Jamison Jones.

‘Can’t be lost if we don’t know where we’re going in the first place.’

Opening 35 years ago to a teen girl going to a house to babysit, it’s all pop music and the 80s.  Until she walks down the stairs to the basement…

Fast forward to five days ago and we meet 17-year-old Ben (John-Paul Howard) on his way to visit his dad (Jamison Jones).

Ben’s got a broken arm, his parents are getting divorced and the local kids are mean.  Except Mallory (Piper Curda) – she has a crush.

It’s all a bit teen, even to the spying on the next-door neighbours when they’re about to get it on.

But horrors and teen dramas can be a good mix if the right characters get killed off and the monster’s scary enough.

Enter, the Dark Mother.  A monster of the forest that feeds on the ‘forgotten’, AKA: eats kids.

‘Mum’s acting weird,’ says young next-door neighbour Dillon (Blane Crockarell).

And quite rightly so as the Dark Mother takes possession, creaking, stinking, her flesh rotting, her whispers making ears bleed.

I just didn’t find this Dark Mother particularly scary.

There’s an overreliance on the soundtrack with no real back story to this monster.

The Pierce Brothers (Brett Pierce, Drew Pierce) were inspired by Roald Dahl’s The Witches and the experience of living through their parents’ divorce.  “We cobbled together our favorite aspects of Black Annis, an English legend, and the Boo Hag of the Appalachian Mountains and fused it with our own creepy concepts.”

But the idea behind the monster doesn’t translate.  Adding some history into the film would have given the Dark Mother more meaning, giving the scares more meat.  Instead, she’s a mystery in the film, where all Ben can figure is that it exists.

But it’s not all bad.

The story itself has some twists, and the pacing of the drama is just right.

The dad character adds a playful tone to the otherwise taking-life-way-too-seriously son, Ben:

‘The TV doesn’t have a HDMI port,’ says Ben.

The Dad replies, ‘Did you plug it in?’

Yet there’s no circling back to that 35 years ago beginning of the film, so why start there?

The film lived out its own journey of, can’t be lost if it doesn’t know where it’s going…

All the symbolism was there but then the narrative got too caught up in the teen drama so the drama was better executed than the horror of the dark monster.

Certainly not the worst horror I’ve seen but the few moments of, OK, that just happened, didn’t lift the tension to any genuine scares.

Monos

Rated: MA 15+Monos

Directed by: Alejandro Landes

Written by: Alexis Dos Santos, Alejandro Landes

Starring: Julianne Nicholson, Moises Arias, Sofia Buenaventura, Julian Giraldo, Karen Quintero, Laura Castrillón, Deiby Rueda, Sneider Castro, Paul Cubides.

Monos has been hailed as Lord of the Flies meets Apocalypse Now and with so many obvious parallels I couldn’t help but wonder if this would be a film I had already seen.

As Monos opens, the camera swoops in on a remote outpost atop a mountain, where a band of war orphans shelter in an abandoned bunker. From a distance the terrain is visually arresting and close-up the environment alternates between a muddy and wind-whipped wasteland overhung by great, boiling clouds and a private Shangri-La for the group of underage guerrillas. That is, until the encroaching conflict pushes the squad and their hostage down into the cover of the jungle below.

While Apocalypse Now also tracks an expedition into the tangled depths of the jungle, the primordial setting a mirror to the battle-ravaged psyche of a U.S. colonel gone rogue, Alejandro Landes’s film goes even deeper, beneath the skin to where the blood fizzes and thrums. In the swarming wilderness, birdlike tongue clicks identify the group to itself and a lone giggle rises up into the indifferent skies. With the ever-present helicopter rotors pulsing overhead, echoing both Apocalypse Now and the strains of a thumping heart, Mica Levi’s music score builds into a vast and panoramic soundscape that is at the same time utterly intimate.

Landes’s camera, too, continues this dance between near and far. On one level, telling the story in the traditional way with characters and dialogue and, on another, the soaring camerawork abstracting the experience. Unlike the two earlier films, each viewed through the prism of a single character, Monos is seen through the eyes of its several victims. While this approach does invoke the visceral experience, it also opens up a psychological distance that may not be to everyone’s taste. At the same time, this cinematic distancing also tilts the focus of the film ever so slightly.

Where Lord of the Flies and Apocalypse Now tell intensely human stories that arise from the social and political context of their times, Monos more directly addresses the context. At the outset, these child soldiers playing blind man’s bluff, indulging in communal pashing sessions and so gleefully spraying the slopes around them with machine gun fire enjoy an almost unfettered degree of freedom, but underlying it all are the unspoken fears that come with the threat of adult punishments and all-to-real consequences.

It is a culture shaped by its paramilitary status, but it is also a society populated by those young enough not to have preconceived notions of what a society should be. While the stories told by the two earlier films have emerged from highly organised social structures that they implicitly critique, there is no sense here that these teenagers have ever known a safe haven beyond their earliest years.

As the war encircles them, their micro-society does not so much fall apart as an already harsh regime mutates, morphing into an entity where those that wield the power will do absolutely anything to preserve their fiefdom and those on the receiving end will, equally, risk everything to get out.

Monos is both lyrical and shocking, an experience felt at the level of tissue and bone, and a story playing out, somewhere. Now.

Burden

Rated: MBurden

Directed by: Andrew Heckler

Written by: Andrew Heckler

Produced by: Robbie Brenner, Bill Kenwright

Starring: Garrett Hedlund, Forest Whitaker, Tom Wilkinson, Andrea Riseborough, Tess Harper, Crystal Fox, Usher.

‘Perfect love drives out fear.’

Hitting a sledgehammer through a pane of glass introduces Mike Burden (Garrett Hedlund).  He’s having fun with his mates; he’s teaching kids to be nice.  He’s a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.

Based on a true story, Burden shows Mike as he tries to see past his loyalty to the KKK and the father figure who raised him: leader of the KKK, Tom Griffin (Tom Wilkinson).

The film follows Mike as he begins to see past hate and resentment when he meets single mum, Judy (Andrea Riseborough) and how her young son doesn’t see colour, his best mate black and the son of an old high-school friend Clarence (Usher Raymond): someone Mike says to a KKK member he can talk to but wouldn’t sit and eat dinner with.

Set in 1996, tension rises in the small town of Laurens, South Carolina when the Klan opens up, The Redneck KKK Museum.

The black community led by Reverend Kennedy (Forest Whitaker) protests against the glorifying of the KKK’s hateful past.

What the film shows and what writer and director, Andrew Heckler has captured is not just a right and wrong side, or a good versus evil – there’s family and community in the Klan and in the flock of Reverend Kennedy.

The film makes the point of how important family is in the Klan, and how kind.  And how hateful.

From the Klan there’s talk of protection and heritage, then there’s the Reverend talking of love thy neighbour, rebuke evil and the fire of love.

With Forest Whitaker you always know there’s going to be some authentic sincerity – used well here as the Reverend navigates his very human feelings of hate for those who lynched his uncle versus his love of God, to want to rise up to lift others.

Love is what saves Mike – from the increasing violence and threat of murder.  It’s his love of Judy and seeing the world through the innocent eyes of her son.  And it’s the embrace of acceptance and understanding from a man he once would have killed because of the colour of his skin.

I admit, I was bracing myself before watching this film, feeling oversensitive with all the protests and racial tension in the world.  I find the violence in true stories harder to watch.  But Burden is more drama than horror or crime.

This is a film about the individual, about Mike letting go of that American Dream.  And if you don’t get it then it’s got to be someone’s fault.

About needing someone, ‘to step on to feel better.’

By turning away from resentment, Mike becomes free.

And at the moment, any message of Be Kind is very welcome.

Be kind peeps.

Vivarium

Rated: MVivarium

Directed by: Lorcan Finnegan

Written by: Garret Shanley

Produced by: Brendan McCarthay & John McDonnell

Co-Producers: Jean-Yves Roubin, Cassandre Warnauts, Alexander Brøndsted, Antonio Tublen

Starring: Imogen Poots & Jesse Eisenberg.

“The idea of owning your own home has become like a faery tale. Insidious advertising promises ‘ideal living’, a fantasy version of reality that we strive towards. It is the bait that leads many into a trap. Once ensnared we work our whole lives to pay off debts. The social contract is a strange and invisible agreement that we flutter towards like moths to a flame.” – Director, Lorcan Finnegan.

Watching a cuckoo bird kick the other baby bird out of its nest and to see the mother feed the imposter – demanding, destroying, killing – sets the tone of the world young couple, Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) and Gemma (Imogen Poots) find themselves trapped: Yonder: You’re Home Right Now.

Walking into a real estate agent’s office, they follow the creepy agent, Martin (Jonathan Aris) to the Yonder housing development, only to find the creepy agent has left and they can’t seem to find their way out – all they can see are perfect clouds and identical green houses lined up, green and the many shades of green, they always end up back at Number 9.

And inside Number 9 is one blue room, the baby room.  The baby boy room.

‘Do you have any children?’

‘No, not yet,’ Gemma replies with a clap.

‘No, not yet,’ mimics creepy Martin – clap.

Vivarium’s a creepy movie with flashes of sci-fi and the drama of a couple stuck in what becomes a living hell.  Where they’re left with a child to raise who speaks like a man.

It’s tempting to see the comment of young couples getting trapped into these model houses (the point made by director, Lorcan Finnegan), but to also be trapped into having a family, to be fed upon until left as a dry husk…  But raising a family gives back as much as it takes (I’m generalising here).  A Cuckoo bird?  It just takes.

It’s like a survival story where I’d be trying the same things to escape those endless fake green houses and the screaming not-boy.

“I am not your mother,” says Gemma.  Yet she continues to feed him, wash him, put him to bed.

The bulk of the story is the relationship between Tom and Gemma, the tidy build of pressure as time outside of the normal world takes from them more than physical labour or starvation, it’s the psychological toll of living somewhere else that destroys.  The monotony poisons, as the cuckoo bird takes what’s left.

“That’s nature, that’s just the way things are.”

A bleak film, but thoroughly absorbing.

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