Vivarium

It reviews better than it plays — admired more than it is enjoyed.

• “While I already miss the experience of seeing these films in a theatre, Vivarium does evoke TV precedents, most notably Twilight Zone in the cleanness of its premise and the parsing out of dark details on a need-to-know basis.”

  Jim Slotek, Original-Cin · 91

• “I have to give the filmmakers a ton of credit here because they walk themselves to a point of no return as far as where things are heading and they do not blink. They lift the curtain to briefly show us the horrors beneath the sterile walls of this prison and let them exist as inevitability rather than something that can be altered.”

  Jared Mobarak, The Film Stage · 83

• “Vivarium is a lab-rat experiment of a film, with flat, facetious humour and a single insidious joke maintained and developed with monomaniacal intensity. In its way, this film is an emblem of postnatal depression and simple loneliness.”

  Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian · 80

• “It’s open to debate whether this claustrophobic little parable means something. It’s devilishly clever but there’s a suspicion that this is beautiful calligraphy without words. And yet with the added circumstance of self-isolation, quarantine and quiet four-walled despair, Vivarium will undoubtedly resonate.”

  John Bleasdale, CineVue · 80

• “Vivarium is a wonderfully strange and gripping thriller that examines the stresses of homeownership and starting a family, perhaps all-too-soon.”

  Hannah Hoolihan, Screen Rant · 80