Grow up, get a job, find a partner, settle down, have kids, raise them, die. That’s the suffocating formula that Vivarium takes aim at in this uber-creepy suburban sci-fi, as young lovebirds Gemma (Imogen Poots) and Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) take the first faltering step on their life together by visiting an estate agent. Little do they know it’s a decision that will snatch them away from their normal routines and imprison them in a nightmarish perception of how life is supposed to go.
That’s because the estate agent in question is Martin, played with exquisitely unsettling eccentricity by Jonathan Aris. Despite his almost lizard-like mannerisms and entirely unnatural speech, Martin somehow convinces the pair to follow him in their van out to Yonder, a lurid suburban housing development in which all the properties are painted the same sickly shade of mint green. It’s no coincidence that the song on their stereo as they arrive at Yonder – A Message to You, Rudy – is defined by refrains urging the tearaway Rudy to stop his messing around and start thinking of the future.
Because that’s what Gemma and Tom have to do immediately, when Martin abandons them in their new spotless but soulless prefab. The CGI used in the geography and skyline of Yonder is intentionally unconvincing, only adding to the feeling that the couple have become trapped inside a horrible version of The Sims gone wrong. When a baby arrives on the doorstep and their van runs out of petrol during a fruitless escape attempt, it’s clear that they’re now fully tethered to their draining but dull existence.
The child itself, played with unnerving otherworldliness by Senan Jennings, is like some sort of alien lifeform sent to test their patience and suck away their vitality. It’s a thinly veiled metaphor for the trials of parenthood and the monotony of succumbing to the so-called American Dream, while there’s also room for some hotpotato questioning of current gender roles. But although the themes being investigated are interesting enough and The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror-style construct used to explore them is novel and engaging, the narrative itself can’t keep pace.
That becomes increasingly clear as Tom whiles away his life digging a hole to nowhere and Gemma resentfully nurtures the satanic sprog in her care. Again, the metaphor for parenthood works neatly enough, but as a cinematic spectacle, it hardly makes compelling viewing for the film’s entire runtime. As a result, things fall away a little in the final third, especially as the conclusion is as depressing as could have been predicted from the outset. All that makes for an intriguing but unsustainable and overly bleak parable on the demands which society places upon individuals and couples alike.