Vivar­i­um

Few young cou­ples try­ing to get on the prop­er­ty lad­der will have a worse time than Imo­gen Poots and Jesse Eisen­berg in Lor­can Finnegan’s Vivar­i­um. A hefty dose of post-mil­len­ni­al malaise is fil­tered into con­ven­tion­al fam­i­ly life as the duo are plunged into a hell­ish sub­ur­bia that makes the headaches of mort­gages and deposits seem like bliss.

Finnegan swift­ly tees up the night­mare as first-time buy­ers Tom (Eisen­berg) and Gem­ma (Poots) meet Mar­tin, a twitch­ing, odd­ball estate agent played by Jonathan Aris. When he van­ish­es, they are trapped in a labyrinthine hous­ing devel­op­ment named Yon­der and tasked with rais­ing a baby-like crea­ture dumped on their doorstep.

In cri­tiquing the monot­o­ny of a life many cou­ples crave, much of the film’s dis­qui­et is ampli­fied by the throbs of Kris­t­ian Eidnes Andersen’s reverb-heavy score. Like­wise the mut­ed pas­tels of Philip Murphy’s pro­duc­tion design neat­ly craft a grim, super­sized toy-town that’s the last place you’d want to play hap­py fam­i­lies. And while that may sound emi­nent­ly bleak, Finnegan and co-writer Gar­ret Shan­ley do find room for some black comedy.

Eisen­berg, who spends most of the film dig­ging up the front lawn, is more rough-around-the-edges than pre­vi­ous­ly seen and capa­bly han­dles some of the more dead­pan punch­lines. Yet while his char­ac­ter remains thin, Poots comes into her own and shows real range as the reluc­tant moth­er of a child who is both kooky and creepy.

Just when Vivar­i­um appears to run out of steam, it turns away from the dai­ly grind to embrace body hor­ror and sci-fi mind-bend­ing, all held togeth­er by its female lead.

In pre­sent­ing this cyn­i­cal para­ble, many of the visu­al metaphors are cer­tain­ly on-the-nose. Look no fur­ther than the open­ing scene of a nest mak­ing cuck­oo bird, for exam­ple. Yet there is a plea­sure in the film’s blunt­ness that is unde­ni­ably effec­tive and makes you see that Yon­der may be clos­er to home than you might realise.

Vivar­i­um is released on dig­i­tal only 27 March.