Vivarium arrives

I've been impatiently waiting for my next chance to see Vivarium, which I saw at MIFF and which
occupied my #1 spot last year for a couple months, and coronavirus finally delivered me that opportunity.

I don't know if it was destined for a proper theatrical release -- I think not, unfortunately -- but the pandemic certainly scuttled any chance of that. It's recently debuted for purchase and rental on iTunes, and other similar platforms I imagine.

It's movies like Vivarium that allow us cinephiles to keep going with our fresh new movie conquests, without hating ourselves in the morning -- even if, in my case, I already saw it and counted it last year.

I wrote about Lorcan Finnegan's film last year at MIFF time, but I was very hesitant to reveal any of its secrets. I'm still hesitant, but the poster is starting to force my hand. As you can see, it's got the tagline "You're home. Forever."

I'll just say something along the lines of what I said last time, except the difference is that this time, you can go right now to iTunes to rent it. I'm not going to check my actual wording from last August, but what I feel willing to convey, and what is probably similar to what I said then, is that this is a must-see for people who like their mindbenders with a little dose of social satire and black humor. Plot-wise, it involves Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots as a young couple looking to buy a house, who are led by an odd salesman to a residential development where all the houses are eerie carbon copies of the one in the poster. And the clouds have a sort of fake look to them ...

The difference between then and now is also that I finally have some feedback from some other people I know who have seen it, one of whom is my wife from our viewing on Sunday night. She was actually supposed to be the one who saw it at MIFF, while I had to sacrifice my intended viewing two nights earlier to her scheduling conflict. But she ultimately couldn't go to her viewing so I went in her place. And couldn't have been more pleased with the turn of events.

If our roles had in fact been reversed, I doubt I would have sought it out now, as her response was considerably more measured than mine. She made the obligatory comments on its evident craft and moments of exquisite weirdness, but I was looking for her to be blown away, and she was not. I think that's in part because, like The Platform, it was a little too close to home in this time of quarantine and being stuck in a house with your own family members, at whom you're starting look sideways. In both instances she said felt her anxiety level increasing. For me, that's a good thing when watching a movie; her, maybe not so much.

Then I heard from a couple others on my Flickchart Facebook group today, after I posted about it. They both similarly praised it and were both similarly short of the full "go out and see this right now" endorsement I was hoping for. One said it was "a little on the nose" while the other said it was "not particularly original," and both criticized Eisenberg as miscast. I couldn't have disagreed more on all fronts, though I do think Poots gives the better performance.

So not everyone praises it as much as I do ... but who are you going to believe, them or me? I mean, you're not reading their blogs right now, are you?

I'm just glad it has arrived, that it's out there in the world and that I can now start to share it with everyone else, even if they don't all think it's the cat's pajamas.

Viva Vivarium.