A young couple (Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots) shopping for their dream home are taken by a creepy realtor (a scene-stealing Jonathan Aris) to view a unit in “Yonder,” a neighborhood so uniform that it makes the term “cookie cutter” sound desirable. They soon decide to look elsewhere, but discover the guy has vanished and that they mysteriously cannot find their way out of the labyrinthine development.
They have no choice but to stay. A box of supplies arrives daily at the curb. Then one day the box contains a baby and the message, “raise the child and win release.” The rapidly growing youngster is not a pleasant person.
As alien infestation flicks go, this high-concept “Twilight Zone”-ish lab rat experiment of a movie is not without its flaws. But it’s well acted, consistently inventive and, for me, completely riveting. In a sense, it’s the perfect quarantine movie, merely for offering the fleeting notion that someone is in an even more claustrophobic situation than you are. (97 min)
Vivarium Japan release date March 12, 2021
