VIVARIUM (2020)

Directed By: Lorcan Finnegan Written By: Garrett Shanley Story By: Lorcan Finnegan & Garett Shanley  Cinematography: MacGregor Editor: Tony Cranston

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Imogen Poots, Jonathan Aris, Eanna Hardwicke

A young couple is thinking about buying their starter home. And to this end, they visit a real estate agency where they are received by a strange sales agent, who accompanies them to a new, mysterious, peculiar housing development to show them a single-family home. There they get trapped in a surreal, maze-like nightmare.

The film Plays as a mystery with no answers though gives you everything you need to know in the opening scene 

While the film Certainly has many ideas and great visuals in what feels like a kind of fantasy tale. It becomes just as frustrating as the characters feel throughout watching it.

As the films give us a mystery to keep us intrigued but that is about it. As Jesse Eisenberg’s character, it keeps digging itself deeper though it offers no explanation. Which ends up feeling like why should we care and with offering no kind of answers but trying to make it more mysterious it get annoying and we can’t even feel much for these characters who are trapped.

After a while, it feels like this film is mostly a showcase for the director and screenwriter rather than making them engaging or logical. 

It seems rather more interested in impressing rather than being a story or even a film. So that it can leave the audience cold And unfulfilled. 

The film gives clues that this is rather weird by the make-up and loom of the real estate agent. So it alerts us that there is something afoot.

The scenes with them Raising a child who is supposed to be a mimic but you can tell His voice even when normal is a voice over takes you out of the film.

The film has an intriguing central idea The. just seems hesitant to move on and instead just chooses not to explain its point and Leaves it to be freaky or weird and visual. So never making its points.

Which can be intriguing but here it seems Lazy. As for all that they show and tell they canMt back it up and would have to explain why. That it might not all fit together.

So instead the movie comes off as a study that we are watching personally for what? Who knows but that is not what you expect and makes it all the more challenging. So that it plays almost like a fictional documentary only more observant as we never get any explanations or testimonials.

It’s A shame as both actors I truly like but the way it plays anyone could have played these roles. As they are front and center they don't have much to play with and could be anybody. They are barely likable and don’t have any personality. 

Grade: C+