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Day 121: Viva las varium

What I'm watching today

Vivarium (2020, Amazon Prime streaming) - Jesse Eisenberg really drives me nuts in a not-good way, but Imogen Poots? She's great in everything she touches. So that was the tipping factor that got me to watch this movie. It's hard to sum up concisely what this movie is about, but here goes: A young house-hunting couple tours a house in a new subdivision of identical cookie-cutter homes where they are then trapped and forced to start a new life and raise a child that isn't theirs with the promise that they will be released if they follow instructions. The whole movie is an analogy for suburbia sucking the life out of people, how sometimes becoming a parent isn't happy news, that people work themselves to death, and that sometimes even if you do everything you're supposed to, your child doesn't turn out well-adjusted. None of this is a spoiler, because the director spoon-feeds every bit to the viewer. He does successfully incorporate Irish legends and subtle imagery very well: the myth of changelings taking the place of babies, malevolent faeries imprisoning well-intentioned people, and endless rows of green houses standing in for the hollow emerald hills of Ireland. I really liked the intent of the movie, but it's main problem is that it lays everything out for the viewer so that the viewer doesn't need to think. I'm going to have a hard time placing this in my movie rankings list.

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