Comments on: Vivarium is Saying Something Big But What?

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sat, 22 Aug 2020 20:29:36 +0000

Ok, so I’ve tried to get through this movie a number of times and finally just finished it. I wound up falling asleep on the last 20 minutes last night. So I think the concept of this film is perhaps way more interesting than the actual film which is kind of boring until the end where you sort of get an idea of what is happening. I got a fairly depressing message from it which is that we as parents are just producing robot children that suck the life out of us until we just up and die. And then the ingrates just toss us in a body bag and in a grave. That was my literal thought right after watching it and I knew it would be posted here so I could type it out. I haven’t even finished reading your take on it yet but as soon as I finish complaining how terribly negative this movie was, I will! I mean, I don’t know if that’s what the movie is really trying to say but that’s what I got from it and man, that’s just depressing. Not to mention I don’t believe it to be true. I mean the people we see when Gemma goes under the curb are all stuck raising weird robot boys as well and literally getting the life sucked out of them by doing so. And I’m not sure what the ultimate point is as the robot boys are then stuck in a real estate office roping in new parents so their lives seem as awful as the people forced to raise them. So if this is supposed to be a more evolved species I don’t see how as their lives are reduced to being raised and then being trappers of new victims. So I guess the opening image makes sense with the birds if you think about it. So I definitely can’t say I liked this film because of the terribly cynical message but I will say the acting was great and it made me think about it after so there’s something to be said for that, I guess!

By: Shelby

Shelby — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 16:52:45 +0000

I just finished the movie and immediately came to your site to see if you had written about it!

So my take is that it’s an anti-capitalist movie. You have this parasitic company who is using and abusing innocent people to boost the bottom line. They don’t care about anyone else. They don’t care that you are just trying to survive every day, you aren’t enjoying life, you’re just working to sustain yourself and your family til you can’t work anymore, and then you die. That’s my take anyway. I loved it!

By: Taylor Holmes

Taylor Holmes — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 02:07:12 +0000

Mauro – sorry to let you down dude! But I see this as being more like The Lighthouse, than the Platform.

But I have to say THANK YOU, for the reminder to get off my ass and to post my walkthrough of episode 5 of Devs! With the chaos of life, I just totally let it slip. THANKS!

By: Mauro Ramón

Mauro Ramón — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 15:17:38 +0000

Well, saw that last night. Eerie, so opressive that I had to switch to watch chapter of DEVS and return to end it (hate to left movies abandoned/unfinished).
Watched it because of the trailer. Big expectations. Well… about 30 minutes of it, I was (depressed?/disappointed?)… Could not define if very well. I saw -many- movies like this, but one way or another they have some hook that make me watch them non-stop start to finish.
And also, want to find some ulterior/hidden meaning after that. Well.. the bag was almost empty. Imogen put a lot on it, Jeesse – well- acted as … Jeesse (at some point more o less like the alien child). The latter was absolutely annoying, and I guess they did a good wok depicting a human-shaped alien with an AI conscience that tried to replicate human behaviors… and failed.

All in all… I could barely say that it´s a movie I will remember nor recommend.
And I like this kind of movies. For instance, The platform was ok for me. Crude.. but ok.

By: Taylor Holmes

Taylor Holmes — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 14:31:50 +0000

In reply to deKev.

I’m always impressed with closed box movies that can find 100 minutes of chaos to hold an audience’s attention. 10×10 comes to mind specifically… and even more so, The Fare. They both had fantastic surprises that sort of buoyantly carried you forward. Vivarium really didn’t have much of that. Nothing really eye opening. Like this was penance for some moral failing. Or that this rat maze actually was manipulatable somehow. Or something.

Like, if the two had realized that the hive mind controlling the children was for some larger purpose or something. Not an Independence Day thing, but just to learn resilience after learning that their species is dying off or something. Which then makes them at risk… and then, the couple uses that to their own advantage. I literally will not tell any of my friends… HEY GO SEE VIVARIUM, mainly because of the ultra dark ending. Yes, I don’t need the duo to ship a virus up to the mothership. But they also don’t need to be placed in body bags at the end either. Or if they do, make it for some larger purpose.

But in a Lobster or Killing of a Sacred Deer kind of way, I get it. It’s communicating something about humanity here. About our failings in morés and ideals… maybe? But it really wasn’t until just now, when I tried to “FIX” the movie that I realized it’d be breaking the entire point of the film. Which, can’t be about the aliens. Why? Because they die… miserably, alone, and sad. Their death has to be reflective of a larger point.

Hrmmm. Thanks DeKev, you always make me think deeper on a topic. And I agree, it wasn’t stellar because it was locked into making this larger point. Which I get. And yet, it kept it from being a bit more entertaining.

By: deKev

deKev — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 09:16:20 +0000

I was hoping this would be a less grisly The Platform of sorts, as it turned out, this movie just about managed to hold my interest till the end. That’s just my way of saying this would have worked better with a leaner running time, like an episode of Black Mirror, sans the techno paranoia, or even better, like a Twilight Zone episode of old.

Despite that, it has its moments. Best of which is the one where the couple were having a spur-of-the-moment dance in the street, you know, that one brief moment of joy and respite from their humdrum existence, the annoying kid had to join in and promptly spoilt it for everyone else! A truly funny and poignant bit of family dynamics captured here, haha.

One detail that I find somewhat jarring to the concept of the suburban trap is that the couple did not even like the McMansion-from-hell in the first place, and were even making a run for it. Also, they were likely just being polite, like any decent human being would, when they went for a quick tour of the house with the creepy broker. I think it’s fair to say they had not explicitly agreed to anything at all! And so, to have them condemned to a domesticity hell from which there is no escape, other than death, well, is a bit unwarranted or dare I say, unfair. Or maybe that’s just the whole point, like it or not, fair warning or not, family life is gonna be hell?

Eanna Hardwicke’s age:
https://evoke.ie/2019/10/15/showbiz/irish-actor-normal-people-tv