Rented a new movie on iTunes called Vivarium. This is a little horror-like movie essentially starring just Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots with a couple other actors coming in and out of the plot. It’s very, very Twilight Zone like… which is both good and bad because it’s got the plot but it’s got triple the run-time and there’s not enough happening to keep the tension and mystery going.
So the flick features a young couple looking at houses. A creepy, awkward real estate agent takes them to a suburb where all the houses are the same for miles and miles on end. Then he vanishes while touring one of the houses and the couple find they cannot escape the burbs.
Yeah, Hollywood being clever enough once again to point out the sameness and homogeneity of the suburbs. It’s an old, way overused trope that you have to saunter by to get anything out of the flick.
But there is something to get out of the flick. Their confusion and anger at their weird predicament (and realizing this cannot be natural but there’s no one to focus their rage) is pretty well played. As they flounder about, trying to find a way out or explanation, the movie does a pretty good job of keeping its mystery tight.
But, as the movie goes on, there’s only so much two actors can do with the script they have. It never gets bad but it does start to wear out its welcome a bit. A tighter, shorter run time would have kept this a continuously engaging movie.
But it’s not bad if you’re on the lookout for a low-budget indie flick that does a lot with very little. It’s both somewhat predictable and somewhat unpredictable and I kind of appreciated that. Maybe check it out if it’s up your alley.
Score: 76