Rating: 2.5/5
Gemma is a primary school teacher. After class, one student finds an altricial chick ejected from its nest, dead on the ground. Gemma suggests a cuckoo may have done it.
— Why don't they just make their own nest? — Because that's nature. That's the way things are. — I don't like the way things are. They're terrible.
Gemma’s landscaper boyfriend, Tom, descends from the tree and buries the chick. The two imitate wind blowing. They leave to speak to a real estate agent named Martin. Martin sells them on a suburban housing development called Yonder.
Gemma and Tom follow Martin out to the development. They play along despite not being enthused by the neighborhood’s identical houses. Martin shows them house number 9, performing strange acts of mimicry. He leads them out to the garden, then disappears.
Gemma and Tom try to leave the development, but all roads lead to number 9. As if that weren’t enough, a baby arrives on their doorstep.
Some cuckoo species engage in a behavioral pattern known as brood parasitism, where the cuckoo manipulates a host into raising the cuckoo’s young on its behalf. They do so by laying their eggs in the nests of other species. Martins, for example, are common host targets.
A vivarium is an enclosed space designed for raising fauna and for observation. It often simulates the animal’s ecosystem on a smaller scale. A terrarium could be a vivarium or a biodome.
We’re 15 minutes into the movie, and we’ve figured out what’s happening. So, what will the next 1.5 hours entail? We’ll have several petty arguments, screaming, and annoying kid stuff.
The movie has some cool ideas, but it takes forever. If this movie were 30-40 minutes shorter and if it reached the third act sooner, I might have liked it. Still, the movie doesn’t obey its internal logic and has little to say.
Imogen Poots, however, gives a stellar performance.