Classic Movie Review: Daisies (1966)

Daisies (1966) 

Directed by: Vera Chytilová.

Written by: Vera Chytilová & Ester Krumbachová & Pavel Jurácek.

Starring: Jitka Cerhová (Marie I), Ivana Karbanová (Marie II), Julius Albert (Starsí sveták), Jan Klusák (Mladý sveták), Marie Cesková (Zena na toaletách), Jirina Myskova (Toaletárka), Marcela Brezinová (Toaletárka), Oldrich Hora (Sveták).

 

Vera Chytilová’s Daisies is both an angry and playful film – a film about a pair of young women, with no power in society, except when they realize how it is that older men look at them – basically as playthings and objects, and they decide to turn the tables. It is, in many ways, a boldly feminist film – one that pokes at the heart of patriarchal society, and the Communist society that the film was made in – 1966 Czechoslovakia. Of course, it ran into trouble with the censors – they claimed not to have a problem with the content, but rather the wastefulness of the films climatic food fight scene – but that is just a cover.

 

The two women at the center of Daisies – both named Marie – are both young and attractive – and apparently have no ties to anyone other than each other. One is blonde, the other brunette – but in many ways, they are interchangeable – or more accurately, they seem to act as one. They live in a society full of waste and exploitation – and so they use the only tools at their disposal to do the same. Their go-to move is to have the brunette go out to dinner with an older, richer, married man – leading him on to expect sex at the end of the date. Then the blonde shows up, gorges herself on an entire meal, before the women ditch the older man – laughing the whole time. They high doesn’t last long though – and soon, they are repeating the same pattern again and again.

 

I fear that so far, I have made Daisies seem more linear than it is. The film lashes out in different directions and takes digressions – it’s almost all digressions really. Chytilová basically follows her characters wherever she feels like – sets, locations change frequently and without warning. The color scheme will change as well – the film all of a sudden having a red hue for instance. Any hole anywhere may just act as a transport to somewhere else. It’s a kind of weird, version of Alice in Wonderland.

 

The film is undeniably an angry film. Angry that these two young women have no real alternatives to do what they do, and the oppression they face. But it’s also a very playful film – it is a film about large appetites of all kinds, and the films has a lot of fun going over the top in its depictions of consumption – from the massive dinners the blondes gets the older men to buy for her, to the infamous food fight climax of the film – where the pair of women just waste massive quantities of food in an orgy of excess. There’s also a sequence where the girls chow down on a lot of phallic shaped food. Yes, the film is an angry film, but you’ll recognize influences on Monty Python and Austin Powers here as well.

 

And the performances by the two actresses Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová are both terrific. They weren’t professionals actresses – and they keep things light throughout. As angry as the film can be, their performances never are – they playful and goofy, and get the right, surreal tone to the film. They are key for Chytilová’s effect for the movie itself. It is too bad that the film faced trouble with the censors – anything in the Communist bloc would have, and it certainly hurt Chytilová’s career. Daisies remains the most famous film of the short-lived Czech New Wave – a strange, surreal masterwork of world cinema.

Movie Review: Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Never Rarely Sometimes Always **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Eliza Hittman.

Written by: Eliza Hittman.

Starring: Sidney Flanigan (Autumn), Talia Ryder (Skylar), Théodore Pellerin (Jasper), Ryan Eggold (Ted), Sharon Van Etten (Mother).

 

It is clear from the opening scenes of Eliza Hittman’s extraordinary Never Rarely Sometimes Always that the protagonist, Autumn, is going through some stuff. We first see her at the high school talent show – dolled up like a 1950s star, strumming a guitar, singing a painful and personal song – and being heckled for it. Her stepdad isn’t that supportive of her – he needles her with insults, that she tries to ignore, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of a response, but the digs hurt. Her mother just sits in between, trying to play peacemaker – but thinks her job is done if they aren’t screaming at each other. And all of this is before Autumn finds out she is pregnant.

 

Autumn is played in a brilliant performance by newcomer Sidney Flanigan – which is key to Hittman’s film working at all. Hittman’s strategy is basically never to explain anything – she sits back, allows the camera to rest on Flanigan’s face, and let that face do the storytelling. Autumn never really cracks – never really lets us inside – because for the most part, she is in this by herself. When she takes the test – at the center – a chipper nurse says things that betray her thoughts on the pro-life, pro-choice divide – talking about the beautiful baby, the wonderful sound of the heartbeat, and showing Autumn a pro-life propaganda video when it becomes clear Autumn is leaning that way. In fact, Autumn is doing more than lean that way – her mind is immediately made up. She wants an abortion. But she lives in rural Pennsylvania – a state that requires parental consent for a minor to have an abortion, and that’s not a conversation she wants to have. A few pathetic attempts at a self-abortion later, she decides what she has to do. Along with her cousin – Skylar (Talia Ryder, in another wonderful, subtle performance) – they take the bus to New York City. It should be easy – she can have the abortion there, Skylar can help out, and it will be okay. But, of course, it isn’t that easy.

 

American films don’t like to talk about abortion – not really. In fact, very few films do. This film will remind some of Cristian Pungiu’s wonderful 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days from Romania – which detailed the hoops you had to jump through to get an abortion behind the Iron Curtain. Hittman has said that film inspired this one – in part, because of some the things that film didn’t do, or didn’t address. American specific things. What both films do is walk you through the process, step-by-step, and how invasive it is – how traumatic. The procedure in America is, of course, legal – and so it should be something that you can get easily. But, of course, it isn’t.

 

Hittman’s film follows these two young women through New York over the course of a few days. There are hiccups, and procedures to follow, which make them stay longer than they planned on – longer than they have money to. They don’t do much in those days – they ride the subway, hang out at the bus station, go to the various appointments. It is at one of those appoints that Hittman and Flanigan deliver their tour-de-force – a verbal questionnaire that Autumn has to answer, one painful question at a time, where the camera never breaks away from Flanigan’s face. It’s this scene that gives the film its name, and it’s this scene that is the one that will sear itself into your brain – with its pain, as Autumn, for a few brief moments, cracks just a little – and we see how much pain she is in.

 

Hittman has been a promising director for a while now – with films like It Felt Like Love and Beach Rats. This one delivers on all that promise and then some. It is one of the great American indies in recent years – necessary and important, but one that never announces its importance, or insists on it – it doesn’t preach to the converted, nor try and change your mind. It is an extraordinary act of empathy – and one of the best films you will see this year.

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Movie Review: The Twentieth Century

The Twentieth Century **** / *****

Directed by: Matthew Rankin.

Written by: Matthew Rankin

Starring: Dan Beirne (Mackenzie King), Sarianne Cormier (Nurse Lapointe), Catherine St-Laurent (Ruby Eliott), Mikhaïl Ahooja (Bert Harper), Brent Skagford (Arthur Meighen), Seán Cullen (Lord Muto), Louis Negin (Mother), Kee Chan (Dr. Milton Wakefield), Trevor Anderson (Mr. Justice Richardson), Emmanuel Schwartz (Lady Violet), Richard Jutras (Father), Satine Scarlett Montaz (Little Charlotte), Charlotte Legault (Angel of Britain), Marc Ducusin (A.A. Heaps).

 

The wonderfully weird The Twentieth Century is about the younger days of William Lyon Mackenzie King, who would go on to become Canada’s longest serving Prime Minister – serving a number of different stints from the 1920s, through to late 1940s. Written and directed by Winnipeg native Matthew Rankin, the film will certainly call to mind Winnipeg’s most famous weird auteur – Guy Maddin – in terms of its style, and its strange take on the subject matter. But the vision here is still unique to Rankin – and somewhat appropriate to the subject matter itself. Mackenzie King is perhaps most famous for his eccentricities – being a mama’s boy, and hold séances with his dead dog. And yet, in general, it is agreed that he was among the most boring of Prime Minister’s – a man lacking in charisma, who didn’t have many personal friends, and never married. So he was a man with a boring surface, masking strange eccentricities – and that is precisely what the film shows.

 

You know that this isn’t going to be a typical political biopic in the films first scene – when a young Mackenzie King, played with open faced innocence by Dan Beirne, goes to Toronto’s Hospital for Defective Children, and visits Little Charlotte – who he tells of his political ambitions, and she cheers him on, even as she is slowly dying and knows it. From there, the film traces his journey to try and become Prime Minister – which here involves various competitions in manliness, liking clubbing baby seals, and will end with a bloody battle royal at a hockey rink. It will trace his strange relationship with his mother – played by Louis Negin – and his two “romantic relationships” – neither of which really go anywhere. Eventually, Mackenzie King will realize his goal – although it does involve getting involved with the Governor General (Sean Cullen) – who in this telling is some sort of all powerful, almost cartoon like, power hungry supervillain.

 

Maddin’s influence on the film is obvious. Like Maddin, Rankin is in love with old movies of the silent era – and he uses the boxy 1:33:1 aspect ratio, the sets that deliberately look like sets, or painted backdrops that tell you precisely what they are – almost like a board game aesthetic – a way to go period without having to spend any money on it. And yet, this isn’t quite Maddin’s world either. It is much more interested in the twin aspects of Canadian identity – the surface obsession with normalcy, politeness, and boring behavior, masking deep seeded perversion that fills one with shame.

 

In many ways, The Twentieth Century is the perfect film to make about William Lyon Mackenzie King – and by extension, Canada as a whole. A straight biopic would be dull – even though he leads Canada through many tumultuous times, and has become regarded as among Canada’s greatest Prime Ministers, if not the best, he was also incredibly boring. You aren’t going to make a film about him like you could about his contemporaries – Truman, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, etc. And yet all that boring surface, bellies something deeply weird underneath. I remember back in the 1990s, when someone was trying to explain the difference between American indie films, and Canadian films, and said that American indies were about things that appeared strange on the surface, but deep down were very normal – whereas Canadian films appeared normal on the surface, but were deeply strange underneath. I think we’ve moved away from that somewhat in the past few decades in Canadian films – but it certainly explains The Twentieth Century – one of the highlight of English speaking Canadian films in recent memory.

Movie Review: The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open **** / *****

Directed by: Kathleen Hepburn and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers.

Written by: Kathleen Hepburn and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers.

Starring: Violet Nelson (Rosie), Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (Áila), Charlie Hannah (Cat), Barbara Eve Harris (Sophie), Sonny Surowiec (Taxi Driver #1), Jay Cardinal Villeneuve (Cory), Tony Massil (Neighbour), Aidan Dee (Jessa), James Angus Cowan (Cole), Anthony Bolognese (Jonah).

 

There are two women at the heart of The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open – both Indigenous, but with different levels of privilege. Rosie (Violet Nelson) is an overweight, pregnant 19-year-old, far away from her family, with a partner who doesn’t think twice of verbally abusing her on the street, and does worse when they are alone together. She meets Aila (Elle-Maija Tailfeathers) on the street during one of these instances of verbal abuse. She is half white, half Indigenous, and really wants to help Rosie. She takes her back to her house, and tries to talk her into getting help. She’ll get in a cab with her, and take her to a home for abused women. But she can only help Rosie if Rosie wants that help – and too many women feel that they cannot do better than their abusers – and where will they go, who will they be without them?

 

The film mostly takes place in real time – favoring long, unbroken takes as the two engage in awkward, stilted conversations. To Rosie, Aila is a well-meaning, white stranger – she has a nice home, a nice marriage, a nice career, and even when Aila tells her she is Indigenous as well, Rosie doesn’t quite hear it. To her, Aila is one of the privileged people, looking down at the poor Native girl, trying to help because it will make her feel better about herself. The audience knows this isn’t true – we see Aila at her gynecologist an opening scene, where her own problems come into focus. Perhaps if Aila could see fit to open herself up a little more, than Rosie may trust her a little more. But she remains guarded – as does Rosie.

 

The film was co-directed by Tailfeathers, and Kathleen Hepburn, who take realism as their major aim. The conversation that makes up the bulk of the film often falls into silence, Rosie is awkward and guarded – she mumbles many of her lines – not wanting to be too loud, perhaps the product of the abusive relationship she is in, knowing that would lead to more abuse. What she does tell Aila is bad enough – and makes it clear just how bad things are. Aila allows Rosie her anger, her sadness, her guardedness, perhaps a little too much. She apologizes a lot, and even if she means well, she can only reach out so much to Rosie.

 

The two lead performances are perfect for what they are. The direction adds to the realism, as does the real time aspect of the movie. This is the rare two-hander of a movie that doesn’t feel like a play – you couldn’t do this on stage very well, because of all the silences and mumbles. Instead, the film explores what Indigenous identity – particularly female Indigenous identity – in two very different forms, from very different vantage points of class and privilege.

 

The films ending hits hard, even though, like the rest of the film, it doesn’t push – doesn’t insist you have a certain reaction, doesn’t try and beat you over the head with its message. It also doesn’t wrap everything up in a nice bow either. Sometimes, things cannot be fixed – no matter how well-meaning people are.

Classic Movie Review: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 and 1981)

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Directed by: Tay Garnett.

Written by: Harry Ruskin and Niven Busch based on the novel by James M. Cain.

Starring: Lana Turner (Cora Smith), John Garfield (Frank Chambers), Cecil Kellaway (Nick Smith), Hume Cronyn (Arthur Keats), Leon Ames (Kyle Sackett), Audrey Totter (Madge Gorland), Alan Reed (Ezra Liam Kennedy), Jeff York (Blair).

 

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)

Directed by: Bob Rafelson.

Written by: David Mamet based on the novel by James M. Cain.

Starring: Jack Nicholson (Frank Chambers), Jessica Lange (Cora Papadakis), John Colicos (Nick Papadakis), Michael Lerner (Mr. Katz), John P. Ryan (Kennedy), Anjelica Huston (Madge), William Traylor (Sackett), Thomas Hill (Barlow), Christopher Lloyd (The Salesman). 

 

James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice was published in 1934 – but it took a dozen years for Hollywood to make it into a film – not because of a lack of interest, but because the novel was so sexual that they didn’t think it could be done. That didn’t stop the French or the Italians – both countries made an unauthorized adaptation of the novel in the years between (I’ve seen Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione – and loved it – although it’s not the easiest film to track down these days. When they finally did make the novel into a film, in 1946, they produced one of the classic era’s definitive noirs. It had all the ingredients to make a great noir – a beautiful femme fatale, a poor dupe who gets drawn into a web of deceit and eventually murder. Love and lust conspire to destroy these characters.

 

There are a few things that I’ve always loved about the 1946 film version make it rare for a noir. The film doesn’t take place in the city, it’s not always raining, and it’s not always nighttime. This is small town America – close to Los Angeles, but far enough away to make it feel dusty and small. The plot of the movie is classic noir – a man meets and falls for a woman, who convinces him to get involved in a crime, usually murder, usually of her husband – that he would never normally commit if he was thinking clearly, and is destroyed in the process. And yet, in The Postman Always Rings Twice, the two main characters are a lot more sympathetic than most – a lot sadder. The motive of Cora (Lana Turner) may be the same – she wants free of her husband, but doesn’t want to give up the money he has, but it’s not as heartless as it sounds. Turner plays Cora as a sad woman – a woman who has been treated as a sex object since her teenage years, decided to settle down – get something out of it – and ends up miserable, in a loveless marriage, in a small town, with a man who lacks ambition. The murder plan is evil – but it comes from a more tragic place. As for Frank (John Garfield), the drifter she convinces to kill her husband, he’s not quite the dope they normally are – and and he is very much in love with Cora, and for once, he isn’t fooled by obvious lies – she loves him too. Lust certainly has much to do with it – this is a film that is dripping is sexuality, all the more because of what they couldn’t show onscreen. Their chemistry is instant, and electric. Frank is smart enough to want out – even finds his way more than once – but he just cannot stay away.

 

Also, it must be said, that the pair of them don’t come up with just one murder plot – but two. The first one goes awry, and even though they know they will have suspicion thrown onto them, they go through with the second one anyway. Both plots are kind of half-formed – it feels like neither of one of them is truly thought through in any real way. The film continues a long time after that as well – the noose closes pretty tightly, pretty quickly – but, rare for a noir, they go through the trial, and other legal avenues. This gives both of them a chance to betray the other – and still, come back together. They are behaving like idiots, know it, but they cannot stop themselves. The 1946 film is as much romantic melodrama as it is film noir – a story of two people who fall in love, but cannot be together, and it destroys them – but not before they destroy other things on their way down.

 

The performances are great – Turner was perhaps never better, given an opportunity to do more than be a sex symbol (the film even tries to undercut that at certain points, with strange wardrobe choices). I love the weariness she brings to the role – the way she gives a tired sigh when she comes into Garfield’s room to discuss the murder. Garfield has always been good as playing men juggling their morality – trying to do the right thing, and not always succeeding. This isn’t quite the performance of say, Force of Evil, but it remains one of his best. For Garnett, who had a 50-year career starting in the silent era, and going into the 1970s, the film is probably his best known – he is able to take this strange story, with his twists and turns – a plot that basically climaxes half way through, and then restarts, and finds the perfect pace for it. The Postman Always Rings Twice remains one of the quintessential noirs – and one of the best.

 

Which brings me to Bob Rafelson’s 1981 remake. In theory, this is the type of movie that would work best as a remake – unrestrained by the codes that muted the sexuality in the 1946 version – which in the Cain novel was raw and animalistic, qualities that everyone involved in the remake from director Rafelson to writer David Mamet to star Jack Nicholson, said were important to bring out in this film. And, to be fair, this is a film that has a lot of sex in it. Refreshingly, and rather shockingly (considering that now, nearly 40 years later, films still rarely care about it) – the film takes Cora’s sexuality, and pleasure, as seriously – if not more so – than Frank’s. That first sex scene – probably the most famous in the film – starts out in what could be mistaken for the precursors to a rape – but she takes control of that scene the longer it goes on. And she gets what she wants throughout the film’s multiple sex scenes.

 

Jessica Lange has the role of Cora – and it’s probably the movie that made her into a star. It’s easy to see why – Lange was gorgeous – it’s what got her first movie role in the 1976’s King Kong (which didn’t launch her career) – and is dripping with sexuality. She didn’t have the restrictions on her that Lana Turner did – who had to exude that same sexuality under stricter guidelines. She isn’t as sad as Turner was – not quite as beaten down – but she is certainly headed down that path. It is a great performance – probably the best single aspect of the movie.

 

As Frank though. Jack Nicholson is miscast. He’s too old for one thing – too far into middle age, and you never quite believe that he would be so in love (or lust) with Lange’s Cora that he would do everything that he does. Perhaps it’s just Jack’s image – his movie star status, his well-known womanizing – that make it harder to believe. Nicholson does what he can with the role – but it’s a role doesn’t suit him at this point in his career.

 

The film was directed by Bob Rafelson – and it is a great looking film. The film’s de-saturated colors look great, and every frame is filled with grit, dust and sweat. The pacing is a little bit slower than the original film – and it feels much longer (it’s only about 10 minutes longer than the first film). The major action in the film is done by about the halfway point – and the film’s courtroom scenes don’t quite have the same snap as the original. The D.A. is much less of a character here – and much less of a presence. Michael Lerner is fine as their defense lawyer – but he’s no Hume Cronyn. There’s also the ending of the film – which isn’t so much changed from the original, as much as it is cut short. In one way, you can argue that is the end of the story – as it’s the end of Frank and Cora – but it lacks the ironic twist of the original, and kind just stops.

 

Rafelson’s The Postman Always Rings Twice is fine – it’s a good film – but it’s not as good as the book or the original. It really does feel like everyone involved were most interested in exploring the raw, animalistic sex more than anything else – and it does that. You can certainly argue that the film is a forbearer to the erotic thrillers (like Basic Instinct) that would become more popular a decade later. What we end with here is a great looking film, with a marvelous, star-making performance by Jessica Lange that just doesn’t have the same impact as the original.

Classic Movie Review: Things to Come (1936)

Things to Come (1936) 

Directed by: William Cameron Menzies.

Written by: H.G. Wells based on his novel.

Starring: Raymond Massey (John Cabal / Oswald Cabal), Edward Chapman (Pippa Passworthy / Raymond Passworthy), Ralph Richardson (The Boss), Margaretta Scott (Roxana / Rowena), Cedric Hardwicke (Theotocopulos), Maurice Braddell (Dr. Harding), Sophie Stewart (Mrs. Cabal), Derrick De Marney (Richard Gordon), Ann Todd (Mary Gordon), Pearl Argyle (Catherine Cabal), Kenneth Villiers (Maurice Passworthy), Ivan Brandt (Morden Mitani), Anne McLaren (The Child), Patricia Hilliard (Janet Gordon), Charles Carson (Great Grandfather).

 

It’s always interesting to watch films from the past, that try and project what the future was going to look like from the vantage point of the future, when we now know. The 1936 film, Things to Come, adapted by H.G. Wells from his own novel, and directed by William Cameron Menzies, who has more credits as an Art Director than a directed, and produced by Alexander Korda is one of those remnants from the past. It is a compromised vision of the future – and progress, and what would slow it all down, or speed it up into utopia. It’s odd for instance that religion, racism, misogyny, etc. is never really brought up – instead focusing on the march of progress, and those who wish that things would simply remain the same.

 

The films opens in the not too distant future of 1940 – in a city called Everytown (although it looks a lot like London). The British are on the eve of WWII, so while it is Christmas, and everything appears merry and bright, there is an undercurrent of war in the background. John Cabal (Raymond Massey) thinks that war is inevitable, Pippa Passworthy (Edward Chapman) thinks that humanity has learned its lesson from the last Great War – and one will not be coming. He is wrong, and the world plunges into a decades long war. Flash forward to the 1960s, and the Great War is over, but progress has ground to a halt. Things in Everytown are now run by The Boss (Ralph Richardson), a petty man, addicted to his own power, who wants to keep things as they are – even though that means not moving forward, and the walking sickness (zombies, essentially) keeps going, etc. It’s not quite Mad Max-level post apocalypse – but it’s not that far off either. And then they are invaded by the sky people – a society in which technology has advanced, and promises a new, brighter future. Flash forward again – this time to sometime in the 2000s, and we basically have an antiseptic utopia. Man is about to go the moon for the first time – although there is a growing faction who wants to grind progress to a halt, who simply want to live without all this pushing towards tomorrow. Once again, a Cabal and a Passworthy (played by the same actors) are at the heart of this debate – although their children, who volunteer to be the ones who go to the moon, basically solve this for them.

 

Watching Things to Come now is interesting – obviously, Wells didn’t get everything right (WWII happened, of course – but it didn’t last decades, we made it to the moon decades before he thought we would, etc.). But more than that, it’s perhaps easier to see the faults in his Utopia of the 2000s than Wells did. It looks a lot like an environmentally desiccated world – something never touched on in the film. It also seems completely undemocratic – a world in which our benevolent overlords will just treat us all well, as we push towards progresses, and we should accept it – or else, we’re just like the frightened luddites trying to stop progress (Cabal is so convinced that humanity needs to keep pushing forward – correct – that he never questions at what cost all this progresses comes at).

 

From a visual point-of-view Things to Come is quite an accomplishment – a visual representation of the future with stunning art direction that will bring to mind Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) – and perhaps little else from that time. Producer Korda clearly brought on director Menzies for this purpose- and it’s hard to argue that he doesn’t deliver. Menzies is clearly less interested in anything else – he allows the long speeches in Wells’ screenplay to drag on and on at times – the actors making a meal out of each one of them, because that is what they’ll do absent any other direction.

 

Things to Come then is clearly a flawed film. It ignores too much of what really would hinder progress in the rest of the 20^th Century, which is a major flaw (apparently, Wells did want to take on religion – he even published a copy of his original screenplay when the film came out so people would know this) – but Korda wanted to ignore it. It is a flaw – as are all those speeches. And yet, it remains a fascinating document of the past – looking towards an uncertain future.

Movie Review: Vivarium

Vivarium *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Lorcan Finnegan.

Written by: Garret Shanley and Lorcan Finnegan.

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg (Tom), Imogen Poots (Gemma), Jonathan Aris (Martin), Côme Thiry (Baby), Senan Jennings (Young Boy), Eanna Hardwicke (Older Boy).

 

Whether Vivarium was supposed to come out at this time or not, it is kind of the perfect film for the moment – when we’re all stuck inside, going nowhere. The film is about a couple – Tom and Gemma (Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots) trapped inside a house they cannot leave, with a kid who drives them increasingly crazy. The film has Twilight Zone/Black Mirror type overtones, and was clearly always meant as a metaphor for parenting – but it’s taken on even more resonance in this time when parents are stuck inside with their children all day, every day.

 

The film begins simply enough – Tom and Gemma are looking to buy a house somewhere in the London suburbs, but have yet to find a place. They walk into one of those sales offices for a new development – models of row upon row of the same house, idyllic pictures on the wall, and a way too happy salesperson, who insists on calling this neighborhood by a chipper name. The salesman is Martin (Jonathan Aris) – and clearly, he isn’t normal – but they just assume he’s another salesman, looking for sale. They agree to follow him to the neighborhood to go on a tour. The area is creepy – the houses are even more uniform than normal in these types of planned communities, and their house - #9 – isn’t what they are looking for. But they, they realize that Martin has abandoned them there. And despite their best efforts, they cannot leave the neighborhood – they drive around and around for hours – always ending back at #9. Soon packages of food arrive – and then another package, with a baby boy and a note – “Raise the child, and be set free”. What choice do they have?

 

Of course the boy isn’t normal – and neither is the neighborhood. The baby grows rapidly – and most of the action takes place a few months later, when the baby now looks like a child around 8 or 9. But he doesn’t behave like a normal child, screams an otherworldly sound when he doesn’t get what he wants, and basically drives Tom and Gemma increasingly mad. What the hell is going on?

 

The film was directed by Lorcan Finnegan, who does a good job at maintaining the strange, surreal tone of the movie – everything looks normal, but isn’t, and the tension mounts. He is aided a great deal by Eisenberg and especially Poots as the couple, trying to figure things out. Eisenberg has a shorter fuse – gets frustrated easier, and soon he’s spending all his time in the backyard, digging a giant hole – he assumes that eventually, he’ll get somewhere. This leaves Gemma increasingly alone with the Boy, and she waivers back and forth between trying to do right by him, and going insane. It’s a fine performance.

 

The premise is probably a little thin for a 90-minute movie. I mentioned The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror – and that is probably where this story belonged, somewhere in the 30-60-minute range, and was the prolonged setup is over, the film does end up repeating itself more than a little bit, before the end game begins (and really, you probably should be able to see what the last few scenes in the movie are going to be before they arrive).

 

Still though, Vivarium is an odd little sci fi, horror film primed for this moment that will make it even more effective that it already was – and that is pretty effective all by itself.