News At Eleven: Millennials Can’t Handle Adulthood

As the ultimate throwaway, on-demand culture of the Millennial generation rapidly ages towards their 40’s, of course, they view home ownership as a more of a trap than a dream.

The French Existentialist filmmakers did this schtick better….

A young couple looking for the perfect home find themselves trapped in a mysterious labyrinth-like neighborhood of identical houses.

Two things about this trailer right off the bat:

  1. We’ve seen this entire plot done better from the Tom Hanks vehicle The Money Pit back in the day to Stepford Wives and even The Truman Show, so there’s literally nothing of note here.
  2. Clearly, Jesse Eisenberg is twitching his way into middle-age quite nicely.

All The Houses Looking The Same is the Point

Cultural commentary on home ownership and the “horrors” of suburbia is as played out as the 20th century is over, so let’s not hope for any new insights from Vivarium. However, what might be interesting is the approach the film is clearly taking toward the tedium of raising children.

Jesse Eisenberg is twitchy even at 40. Or however old this dude is.

It makes you wonder what kind of children the Millennials are planning on foisting on us as a culture if they view suburban living and child-raising as a capitalistic horror show devoid of joy or fulfillment.

What Are We To Make of All of This?

This film is also in the tradition of Us and Get Out of taking seemingly banal topics—like suburban living or child-raising—and claiming that the banality is a horror in and of itself.

Apparently, you were all too busy surfing porn on your smartphones to get the memo about sex and babies. They don’t come in a box.

It’s not a rhetorical point even worth buying a ticket to consider, much less streaming it on Amazon Prime in a few months, no matter how well reviewed it might be on Rotten Tomatoes.

Released at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019, Saban got wide release rights, so look for Vivarium in theaters on March 27, 2020.