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To my readers who may have watched and enjoyed this film, let me just beat you to the punch on this one - I sincerely did not get it! With everything people have said about it, one constant has been that it's a lot like one long episode of 'Black Mirror'. But in my opinion, there are many, many episodes of 'Black Mirror' that manage to top this by about a mile.

I also feel obligated to mention that if you're currently stuck at home during this world-wide outbreak of virus-that-shall-not-be-named, it's just plain uncomfortable. To clear that up, this is about spending a very long time cooped up in the same place, so it will not sit well with many people. Think the term "bottle movie" with certain horror/thriller aspects drizzled in there just to add to your discomfort. It's an unsettling watch as it is, but hey, if you're all for that, go nuts! For the record, there is nothing viral going on here, it's just claustrophobic.

The idea is simple enough, and one can get the basics from the trailer. We meet couple Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) and Gemma (Imogen Poots) who are looking into buying themselves a nice starter home in a nice neighborhood. They visit a real estate agent named Martin (Jonathan Aris) who wants them to check out a strange neighborhood where every house looks the same, and the clouds in the sky look a bit like identical cartoon drawings, called Yonder.

The couple check out a house, but when deciding that they're pretty uninterested, the try to leave. They soon find themselves driving around in a never-ending path that keeps leading them back to the house they looked at, until they eventually run out of gas. This, to me, is just the same idea 'Freddy's Dead' had so that Freddy could trap a group of teenagers in his neighborhood, so it's about 30 years shy of original (probably more) but I digress. Eventually, they find themselves trapped and making the best of this nightmare of a situation, reluctantly planting their feet.

They are able to live here, basing their survival on mysteriously delivered packages of food, and soon they find one package containing a baby boy. They are then forced to play parental units to this kid (Senan Jennings), who seems to grow up very rapidly, has a horrible ADR voice that makes him sound more adult than he is (I'd be bowled over in shock if it was his real voice) and likes to scream loudly when he wants to be fed. When I say scream, I mean one long, steady, horrific scream that makes you wanna reach through the screen and smack him around. I do wonder if that's what the movie was going for though - a test of humanity and patience for the audience. But it's awful, repetitive, and was almost enough to make me turn it off, walk away, and dub it a straight up piece of garbage (I never do that!) but there had to be some kind of interesting twist ending to a movie like this, right?

Allow me to save you at least some time and confusion, with spoilers ahead. If you wanna see it and judge for yourself, just stop reading now. All it ultimately ends up being is the concept of an alien race "zoo-ifying" us humans for study, and forcing us into particular roles - in this case, parents raising a very disturbing child until we wear out and eventually die, only to repeat the loop. This concept has been done before, many times, mainly in sci-fi shows like 'Star Trek'. The concept is neat, making us more like creatures to be studied, or "lab rats", but there's nothing truly original here and I have to admit that I was completely underwhelmed. For a more interesting version of this whole zoo idea, reflective of something like 'Black Mirror', go straight to the source - 'Black Mirror', season 2, episode 2, 'White Bear'.

As far as this goes, it was just too weird for me, and often very annoying when it came to the kid. I didn't find anything to enjoy here at all. But again, I seem to be an odd one out on the enjoyment of it, so if curiosity strikes you enough, I'm not gonna say "avoid at all costs". Several reviewers have enjoyed it just fine for what it is. But again, I warn you, it may very well prove to be an uneasy watch if you find yourself stuck in quarantine right now.

1/5

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