Starting with its pivotal opening sequence of a cuckoo pushing out hatchlings from their nest to claim it as its own, Lorcan Finnegan’s feature knows exactly what it’s doing and it uses every tool at its disposal to deliver us to a devastating conclusion.

| Dec 2, 2024

Even though the two tried, they couldn't overcome a script that feels both apparent and undercooked. A good idea or two can only get you so far it seems.

| Original Score: C | Mar 21, 2024

Vivarium is a surprising and unique film that inspires reflection on the nature of reality and the struggle for freedom in an increasingly homogeneous and controlled world. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 8/10 | Aug 3, 2023

Vivarium is an interesting one. It might frustrate a lot of viewers with its surreal aspects, but it's still a compelling film.

| Mar 21, 2023

Eisenberg and Poots are two of this generation’s most talented actors. Their committed performances allow for the audience to empathise with their experience... at 97 minutes, Finnegan’s tightly-wound script and premise do not overstay their welcome.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 11, 2022

Even as the film bangs on some familiar thematic drums (Suburbia is terrible. Marriage is hard. Raising a kid is even harder), the performances remain strong. I just wish the characters weren’t such hard nuts to crack.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 21, 2022

It's easy to admire Vivarium for how production designer Philip Murphy transforms a few simple sets and a CGI backdrop into a false enclosure.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 20, 2022

This is the equivalent of someone pointing out the problems of the world but offering no solutions - they are simply screaming out into the void.

| Original Score: C | Nov 1, 2021

Vivarium is a darkly satirical and surreal commentary on gender roles, the loss of oneself to parenthood, societal expectations and commercialised ideas of happiness.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 16, 2021

[The] film captures some of this overwhelming hopelessness, the whispered fear that you aren't doing anything right and that even if you were, it wouldn't make any difference.

| Jun 5, 2021

... strong sense of visual and genre storytelling succeeds in making both adulthood and the property market intimidating.

| Original Score: 13/20 | Apr 1, 2021

Vivarium's purgatory is more clear-cut, though that somehow doesn't make it any less mysterious...

| Dec 30, 2020

And in the end, I think that's what Finnegan is trying to say - the world can go to hell in a myriad of ways but having empathy for each other is the only way to cope.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Nov 27, 2020

It was a roller coaster in the dark.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Oct 12, 2020

A postmodern mash-up of genres and aesthetic styles, Vivarium is a suburban horror story ideal for our capitalist - and pandemic - age.

| Aug 27, 2020

... full of quirkiness and nihilism, yet it can't seem to settle on any particular point; in fact, it tries to embrace them all... misses the mark of anything coherent and settles upon weird for the sake of being weird.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 24, 2020

A carefully constructed ride of anxiety, in which characters suffer under the voyeuristic eye of the audience and of society as a whole.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 20, 2020

The question arises: is the movie's central thrust just an attention-grabbing gimmick? Probably.

| Aug 4, 2020

This may not be the best time to release a feature about a couple trapped in a suburban nightmare, completely isolated from the rest of the world.

| Jul 31, 2020

The underlying social commentary about parasitism, the shackles of domesticity and unplanned parenthood is provocative, while Senan Jennings delivers one of the creepiest child performances ever.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 23, 2020