Vivarium (film)

The opening scene depicts the lifecycle and brood parasitism of a family of cuckoos before introducing primary school teacher Gemma and her handyman boyfriend Tom. Looking to buy a house, the couple meet up with an odd and persuasive real estate agent named Martin, who seems to mirror their behavior. They agree to visit a for-sale suburbia, and follow his van to a development of identical houses dubbed Yonder. Martin shows them around house number nine and asks if they have any children. When Gemma replies in the negative, he's able to mimic her voice perfectly.

After looking around the gardens, Gemma and Tom discover that Martin and his truck have mysteriously vanished. Attempting to leave, they repeatedly find themselves back at number 9. They drive around the endless, identical streets until they run out of gasoline. They sleep in the house. The next morning, they try to escape on foot, but consistently discover that they have returned to number 9. They find a box of tasteless vacuum-packed food in front of the house. Tom sets fire to the house and they sleep on the pavement. When they awake another box has been left, containing an infant and the message "raise the child and be released." When the smoke clears, the house is undamaged.

Though they never cease attempting to fight and escape, they begrudgingly begin to raise the child. 98 days later, the he's the size of a ten year-old boy and can perfectly imitate Tom and Gemma. Both parental figures feel burdened by him, with Tom reacting in physical outbursts and Gemma reacting in verbal abuse, often insisting that she is not his mother whenever he calls her as such. Tom becomes withdrawn and starts digging a hole in the garden. The Boy watches fractal-like patterns on the television. In a fit of anger, Tom locks the Boy in their car to starve it, confident that if someone truly wanted them to raise it, they would intervene. However, Gemma takes pity and releases it. One day the Boy goes missing, and returns with a book full of symbols and images of humanoids with throat sacs. When Gemma asks him to mimic the person who gave him the book, he makes rasping sounds and inflates his own throat sacs.

The Boy matures to resemble a young adult. Tom and Gemma avoid him and Tom becomes ill. The Boy leaves during the day and Gemma tries to follow him but always finds herself back at number 9. Tom continues to dig and finds a corpse in a vacuum bag. The Boy locks Gemma and Tom out of the house and they sleep in the car. Gemma pleads with the Boy for medicine for Tom but he replies that "maybe it's time he was released." When Tom dies, the Boy zips him into a vacuum bag and throws it into the hole Tom has dug.

Some time later, Gemma hides in the car, and manages to wound the Boy with the pickaxe when he exits the house. The Boy hisses and crawls into a labyrinth under the pavement. Gemma follows it and crashes through the door into multiple rooms in other houses with more Boys and several strangers, one of whom has died by suicide.

She lands back in number 9, weak and moaning. The Boy is cleaning the house. He carries her to a vacuum bag explaining that mothers die after raising their sons. The boy zips her into a vacuum bag, but before she dies, she manages to tell the Boy, "I'm not your fucking mother." The Boy buries her with Tom and fills in the hole. He drives back to the estate office, where an aged Martin lies dying in his chair. Martin gives The Boy his name tag and expires. The Boy puts Martin in a vacuum bag and puts it into a file drawer. When a couple walks in the door, the Boy greets them in the same manner as his predecessor.

In May 2018, it was announced that Lorcan Finnegan would direct Vivarium from a story he co-wrote with Garret Shanley, and that Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots had joined the cast.[6] It was shot in locations in Belgium and Ireland before moving to Ardmore Studios, Wicklow, Ireland.[7]

Vivarium premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 18 May 2019.[8][9] Shortly after, Saban Films and Vertigo Releasing acquired US and UK distribution rights, respectively.[10][11] It was released in the United States, UK and Ireland on 27 March 2020, with a limited theatrical release and video-on-demand release the same day.[12][13]

On Rotten Tomatoes, Vivarium has an approval rating of 72% based on 149 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Vivarium may confound almost as often as it intrigues, but this well-acted sci-fi/horror hybrid has interesting ideas—and explores them with style."[14] On Metacritic, the film has weighted average score of 64 out of 100 based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[15]

• Stopover in a Quiet Town

• Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived August 4, 2020)
• Vivarium at IMDb