2020 sci-fi thriller Vivarium has managed to garner something of a minor cult fandom after its unfortunately timed release at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The film got generally positive reviews critically and, in the subsequent years, has attracted a quietly passionate audience thanks to its Twilight Zone-esque premise. In keeping with that Twilight Zone influence, Vivarium concludes with a bleak and open-ended twist, leaving plenty of questions lingering in the air. But eagle-eyed (or, in this case, eared) viewers will find that the end credits might hold the answers they need.
Vivarium centers on a young couple, Tom and Gemma, played by Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots. Tom and Gemma are looking for a home. One afternoon they stumble into a realtor's office, and, under bug-eyed pressure from the salesman inside, they agree to view a new suburban tract-home development called Yonder. Once inside the community, it soon becomes clear that they are trapped in an endless maze of identical homes and under observation from some undefined extraterrestrial species. They're then forced to participate in a strange approximation of banal suburban life, even made to raise a quick-growing child, presumably a humanoid version of the alien observers that have imprisoned Gemma and Tom. Naturally, things do not end well, and despite their best efforts, Gemma and Tom both find themselves dead, as the now-adult alien progeny leaves Yonder to replace the (now expiring) salesman that brought them there.
XTC Holds the Key to Vivarium's Mystery
Then, the credits roll. And over them plays the song "Complicated Game" by the English rock band XTC. The lyrics speak directly to the theme and meaning of the film, providing context that viewers can use to find an answer to the lingering question posed by Vivarium: Why? The hook in the middle of the XTC track opines, "it's just a complicated game," preceded and followed by verses that illustrate the fallacy of choice in the face of an all-powerful and uncaring universe. All routes lead to the same thing -- destruction. But there are two distinct interpretations as to what this answer to Vivarium's "why" might mean for the film.
Vivarium's Lyrical Clues Can Be Interpreted in Two Ways
The more generous and textual in-film interpretation points to how the terrifying alien creatures use Yonder as a cyclical tool for self-replacement. There's no move or action that Tom and Gemma could have made to prevent their inevitable fate because there was always some undefinable force there to reverse it. The "complicated game" in question is the facsimile of life, the pretense of optionality Tom and Gemma believe they have, even while imprisoned.
The less generous (and probably unintended) interpretation is extra-textual -- the credits' soundtrack gives a voice to Vivarium's biggest flaw. It brings to mind an adage from Shakespeare's Macbeth -- that the film itself is "told by an idiot, full of sound and fury -- signifying nothing." The idea that Yonder's alien purveyor might go through such a torturous process at Tom and Gemma's expense is a non-starter. There was no point, as the story itself is just a complicated game and a closed circle.
In short, audience mileage may vary on Vivarium. But one thing is for certain -- its ambiguous approach to storytelling and structure certainly makes the Easter egg, like XTC's thematically resonant end-credit song "Complicated Game," all the more intriguing to explore.