Rated: M
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.