Honestly, I had pretty high hopes for this film. I really enjoy Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg and I thought they would have some interesting chemistry on-screen. The story seemed captivating enough from the trailer: A young couple meets up with an unusual real estate salesman to look at a house in a picturesque residential neighborhood, and they get trapped into a hellish suburbia where their only chance of survival is to raise a child delivered to them in a box. I was interested to see what direction it would take and unfortunately, it didn't deliver. The movie sets you up for a thrill-ride and just kind of... stops once it establishes itself. Once Gemma and Tom give up and accept their fate, the movie takes a turn for the worse. I feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities in this film for scares and uncomfortable moments that the director just didn't take. The character development (ESPECIALLY Imogen Poots' character) is really inconsistent, and their motives don't make a whole lot of sense. Why is it that Gemma suddenly decides to care about this child? There's really no lead up to her tacitly accepting her role as "mother". She just kind of... does it one day, with little to no explanation for her behavior. Why is Tom so set on digging this hole? The ending is painfully predictable and unsatisfying. Overall, this movie reads like a crappy episode of the Twilight Zone. It had a lot of potential, but it also fell flat in a lot of places.
Review of Vivarium
