A youngish couple become trapped in a creepy but boring suburban development. With no ability to escape, they settle into a nightmarish parody of suburban life.
It's an obvious and overused metaphor, but this time it's quite literal. We're quickly introduced to our protagonists. They're a rather likeable duo, though you don't really get much more than a nod toward an archetype. Once that's done with, the movie skips all the lead-up and jumps straight to the weird stuff.
Often, you get a bit more stability and normalcy before the weirdness happens so that the weird stuff seems more striking. Instead, we meet a really oddball character almost right away, setting the mood for what's about to follow. In a way, he functions as our Rod Serling, letting us know that we've entered a Twilight-adjacent zone.
Like some people have said, this might have worked better as a long episode of a series. There are some creepy scenes, and some of the developments are interesting. The problem is that I don't think you could cut 30 minutes without it cutting into the good stuff, too. This makes Vivarium more of a slow-burn, creepy thriller than a horror movie.
There aren't really any straight-up, point-blank answers, but the movie's metaphors are pretty obvious. There's a bit of obvious symbolism thrown around here and there, which might make you roll your eyes if you're the observant type. There's also enough information given that you can come to your own conclusions. If tidy answers are very important to you, you should probably skip this, though.
Overall, I liked it. I think the ideas were stretched a bit thin at times, but I guess I'm always up for another cynical and somewhat surreal take on dystopian suburbia.
It's an obvious and overused metaphor, but this time it's quite literal. We're quickly introduced to our protagonists. They're a rather likeable duo, though you don't really get much more than a nod toward an archetype. Once that's done with, the movie skips all the lead-up and jumps straight to the weird stuff.
Often, you get a bit more stability and normalcy before the weirdness happens so that the weird stuff seems more striking. Instead, we meet a really oddball character almost right away, setting the mood for what's about to follow. In a way, he functions as our Rod Serling, letting us know that we've entered a Twilight-adjacent zone.
Like some people have said, this might have worked better as a long episode of a series. There are some creepy scenes, and some of the developments are interesting. The problem is that I don't think you could cut 30 minutes without it cutting into the good stuff, too. This makes Vivarium more of a slow-burn, creepy thriller than a horror movie.
There aren't really any straight-up, point-blank answers, but the movie's metaphors are pretty obvious. There's a bit of obvious symbolism thrown around here and there, which might make you roll your eyes if you're the observant type. There's also enough information given that you can come to your own conclusions. If tidy answers are very important to you, you should probably skip this, though.
Overall, I liked it. I think the ideas were stretched a bit thin at times, but I guess I'm always up for another cynical and somewhat surreal take on dystopian suburbia.