Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots Are Trapped in a Nightmarish Suburb in This Twisty Sci-Fi Mystery

The big picture

• Imogen Poots shines
  Vivarium
  with a complex character arc, showing a raw and desperate performance.
• The final turn of
  Vivarium
  sees Gemma de Poots fighting her fate as a mother figure in a haunting and surreal climax.
• Poots nails his final scene in an Oscar-worthy moment, showing emotional strength and defiance in the face of a dark fate.

Imogen Poots he has shown the kind of versatility that few actors have. She can effortlessly play a woman of the Victorian age, turn around and deliver the modern remnant of a final girl slasher. She kills it as Autumn Rivers, Prime Video's mysterious tramp Outdoor range which has just premiered its second season. Poots plays the only character who may hold the key to the time-traveling black hole and its secrets. She goes toe-to-toe with Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin) and his wife Cecilia (Lily Taylor), claiming to be his lost granddaughter from the future. However, the accomplished British actor has already dazzled within the sci-fi genre in a wild and crazy 2019 film called Vivarium, now streaming on Netflix. She stars opposite Jesse Eisenberg as elementary school teacher Gemma, who, along with her partner Tom (Eisenberg), has her life unexpectedly turned upside down after embarking on a quick house-hunting adventure in a Tim Burton-esque green homogenized subdivision called “Allà”. Vivarium is a deliberate sci-fi horror thriller executed to perfection by director Lorcan Finnegan. Everything is so eerily symmetrical and relentless that it has an unyielding unsettling effect that never lets the audience out of its grasp.

What is 'Vivarium'?

The strangely strange and awkward Martin (Jonathan Aris) shows Gemma and Tom house number 9 in the subdivision, only to disappear as they walk past it. The pair try to head back out of the neighborhood, but no matter which direction they go, they end up back in front of house number 9. Finally, they realize that there is no escape from this maze and start living in the house. Soon, a box containing what appears to be a small child is left at the curb. They have no choice but to take the helpless being into their home and reluctantly begin to raise it. Gemma and Tom quickly discover that the boy they brought into the house is not human. He (Sean Jennings) grows a few centimeters daily and he shows strange behavior as if he is trying to learn and assimilate as a human being. The pair tire of cabin fever and existential dread, not knowing why they've been tasked with raising a distinctly alien species. They struggle to avoid delirium and bouts of insanity, as if stranded on a desert island. The difference is that someone or something keeps delivering food and water to the house to keep them alive and raise the creature that looks like a combination of one of Children of the corn children and Damien of the omen.

Imogen Poot's character has the most complex character arc in 'Vivarium'

Tom, emotionally, checks quickly, happy to go into the little patch of the backyard and dig a bottomless hole every day. It's not that easy for Gemma. Her motherly instinct to preserve this mutant's life kicks in. She has raised him for over four months and is not willing to let Tom abuse him when his annoying cries become too much. The line between what he should care about and what his mind tells him to care about becomes inexorably blurred. He has an emotional attachment to it, while Tom sees it for what it really is: a parasitic alien life form using them as hosts. Tom refers to the boy as “it”, while Gemma has a much harder time seeing the being for what it is. Poots' performance is convincing as a woman thrown into the most unlikely scenario in history. She shows great range in trying to stay true to who she was before she was trapped in That, while also trying to understand her purpose as the creature's caretaker.

Imogen Poots is dynamic in a difficult role in “Vivarium”.

There is an important scene in the middle of the film where Gemma and the creature lie on the grass and look at the clouds. Each cloud has an almost perfect shape. Gemma is impressed by the symmetry of this alien world, and at the same time disgusted by its inorganic, synthetic feel. “Where I come from, clouds come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them look like faces and some of them look like dogs,” he says. The infant child hears the word dogs and begins to move like a robot. Gemma joins him at his breaking point, howling at the clouds like a rabid dog or wolf. From this point on, Poots becomes the villain Tom can't or won't be, embarking on a final quixotic journey to discover his purpose. Poots shows a lot of that girl boss attitude Outdoor rangebut to Vivarium, is incredibly raw, and his desperation is palpable. His disgust at the child creature and his situation allows Poots to show his emotional range as a performer. She is fighting against her maternal instincts and her professional training as a teacher of young minds.

The Twist ending of “Vivarium” is more of a morbid “release” for Gemma and Tom

As the boy grows into a young adult (now played by Éanna Hardwicke), the perpetual existential dread that Gemma and Tom feel begins to intensify. Tom gets sick from a combination of malnutrition and something the alien race is putting in his food and water. The larger and more independent the creature becomes, the less relevant and important they are as hosts. Eventually, the aliens decide that Tom has outlived his usefulness and succumbs to a slow and painful death. Poots, face sunken and bruised, shows a jovial and gentle side as they reminisce about the first time they met as he dies in her arms. In what is easily the film's Oscar-worthy moment for the actress, when the young male creature returns with a body bag, she recoils in fear, crying at the lack of empathy and compassion of the creature. It is by far his strongest moment Vivarium. The creature seals Tom's body tightly in a bag like you would freeze-dry a chicken breast and tosses it carelessly into the hole Tom has been digging. Gemma, although shaken to the core, is emotionally stronger than Tom and continues to live and search for answers.

After wounding the creature with a large pickaxe, he follows it on a surreal, dreamlike journey into a failed seam of the strange world. She sees previous victims going through the same ordeal as she and Tom. She emerges from the mirror of the dreaded and familiar house number 9. Battered, her clothes chipped and torn, Poots lets out one last primal scream that is a haunting release and physical surrender to the creature.. As the beast seals her in the body bag, he tells Gemma that her purpose is to be a mother. Poots nails his finishing line from behind the plastic liner, telling the creature, “I'm not your motherfucker.” with his dying breath.

Vivarium is available to stream on Netflix in the US

WATCH ON NETFLIX