[Seanny One Ball]

Originally Posted by Seanny One Ball Now "Vivarium" is brilliantly creepy so far. Treading a fine line...

Vivarium - 3.5/4

House hunting goes badly wrong for an unwary, unwitting couple.
The film opens with a nasty piece of repulsive nature and follows on with pastel coloured pop-art sets that look like they came straight out of a housing development flyer from the 50's.
Peter Greenaway would love these sets, they look so plastic and blatant that they themselves supply a great element of unease to go with the immediately insidious storyline as well as the performance of the bizarre realtor.
Not to give anything away at all(because the plot is so small and brilliant), this is a film about a situation nobody can do anything about. They have been put there, they are stuck there and making the best of it doesn't ever seem to be a truly viable option.

Eisenberg always struck me best as a naturally neurotic character playing himself off as confident, which is a perfect reason to cast him here because he does it brilliantly and in an extremely restrained and far less verbose character than usual. He jumps from idyllic to insane pretty quickly in this film, or at least his actions would be criminally insane in any other environment outside of this one. Were I posting this on some turd website I'd suggest multiple trigger warnings for people who can't handle a bit of grit, but in the context it is completely essential to the tone.
Man and woman begin to fall apart over the course of the movie due to the malignant influence of a terrible mystery.

This is a film to think about because it explains so little and yet makes sense within its own rules and decisions. It isn't a strange film for the sake of it, it adheres to its own standards and makes the effort to give you something you can take as far as you want in your own imagination.

This was pretty much the best film I could have seen after explaining why "Knives Out" bored me enough to turn it off.
It made the effort to create a mystery, then it provided solid dialogue and story progression based on believable reactions to the premise.

I very much enjoyed and was creeped out by "Vivarium", but be warned. There are a couple of moments in this film that could be described as "just fucking stupid" if it took you even slightly out of the movie.
Luckily I was already too engrossed to care, however this is a distinct possibility with people who do not want anything particularly overt in an otherwise fairly complex little story about a nightmare in real life.

Excellent performances from top to bottom in a tiny cast makes everything more impactful. The plot was clearly set, well paced and executed well enough to induce existential terror.

I would advise anyone who has seen it or wants to see it to read the John Steinbeck short "Johnny Bear", watch the Quentin Dupieux film "Wrong" and have a look for Peter Greenaway's "Tulse Luper Chronicles" in any form you can find it in order to see similar set designs which surely had to have an impact on these.