Vivarium, Caregiver’s Fatigue, and Neurodivergent Kids

Vivarium is a 2019 film starring Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg as a young couple named Gemma and Tom looking to purchase a house. They are lured into an inescapable development of perfect suburbia and forced to look after a young child who exhibits strange and often frustrating behaviour. After some unnerving discoveries, it’s revealed their charge is not human.

The true purpose of this can only be speculated, but I believe it to be a nurturing experiment by whatever alien species is observing them—the pair are provided with food regularly and any attempts at destroying the houses are fixed overnight. Simply called “The Boy”, it arrives as a baby along with a note: Raise the child and be released. The only consolation is the rapid growth; The Boy ages approximately 10 years in 100 days.

You can probably guess, but Gemma and Tom never return to their lives. Their release is death, with The Boy luring in a new couple, creating a seemingly endless loop.

So what does this have to do with caregiver’s fatigue? Well, a bit of a refresher on the term: a caregiver is someone who cares for another, such as an elderly family member, a spouse going through medical procedures, a home visit nurse for disabled people, or many other situations. 

The emotional and physical exhaustion then causes caregiver fatigue. This can cause if the carer is overworking, unable to take time to themselves to relax or dealing with financial stresses and other factors. It can have huge repercussions for both parties. Many cannot get adequate help. 

One of the most prominent types of caregivers is parents of disabled and neurodiverse children. Being a parent is a time-consuming (but rewarding) endeavour and the variety of ways we live and grow up are many. I am not a parent and will remain childless for a variety of reasons. These are my thoughts based on the movie and my experience as an autistic person.

The Boy is clearly based on autistic children. He has many behaviours that are common “tells” including mimicking speech, not understanding social situations and sensory overload (“meltdowns”, etc). Not only are Gemma and Tom thrust into the parenting role unexpectedly, but they also deeply abhor this child, treating him with the bare minimum of care and outright yell at The Boy. (A prominent shot used in the trailers is the pair flipping him off.)

The Boy is given the middle finger by Tom and Gemma, off-screen

After I watched Vivarium, I was curious about what others online thought of the film, which is pretty standard for movie-goers. I liked it and wanted to see if other people liked it too. Something that came up, again and again, was parents saying things like “I have an autistic son, this reminded me too much of him, I couldn’t watch this” or lamenting the difficulties of parenting. While many comments were just off-handed remarks, some were downright mean, ableist, and reminded me of how neurodivergence is treated. Which made me sad.

Neurodivergency and disability are treated as a burden on society. We are often dehumanized and abused just for being ourselves. It’s especially troubling for children, who are defenceless and rely on their parents for love and care, sometimes met with similar attitudes to Gemma and Tom’s. Notice how when (generally mothers) of autistic or disabled kids are interviewed for news programs and write books about their struggles, how hard it is—but the focus is on the parent and rarely about how the child is doing.

Don’t get me wrong, as I said, parenting is hard. But we are still people. A child is not a paperweight. When you talk about kids like things, in how difficult it is to “deal with” them, you’re perpetuating ableism and violence. The largest charities for autism promote cures like it’s a disease to be eradicated. Vaccines have been blamed for causing autism in children. So you’d rather have a dead kid than a neurodivergent kid? Okay. 

Back in Vivarium, Gemma has begun to genuinely care for The Boy, in contrast to Tom, who locks the child in their car and hopes he starves to death. He becomes obsessive and paranoid, digging a hole in the front yard, hopeful of finding the “bottom” of the world and escape. He isolates himself and dedicates all of his physical and mental energy to his digging efforts.

Care for a child is often shouldered by one person in the family. You could compare Tom’s life to that of a distant, working father while Gemma is a stay-at-home mom. They’re both exhausted with no clear solution.

Eventually The Boy ages, now a young man who disappears every day. Gemma, who has now focused most of her daily life on supporting this surrogate son, has nothing to do anymore. Frustration and resentment build. It shows the importance of having your own hobbies and interests, to take care of yourself as well as you care for others. 

Here is where the film branches out from a realistic analogy to sci-fi. The Boy walks on all fours like an insect, crawls around “under” the pavement and Gemma discovers a series of similar houses, all with a couple forced to care for another alien child. Multiple people are trapped in this cycle and she even witnesses a man commit suicide. 

Gemma and Tom sit on the sidewalk, watching the house burn

In the end, Gemma and Tom die and are buried in the hole Tom himself dug. In her final moments Gemma states, “I’m not your mother”. It’s utterly depressing. The Boy, now fully grown, leaves to lure a new family into the fake homes to perpetuate the cycle anew.

I know this has been a fairly negative and sad look at these events, but I did overall love this film. It’s beautiful, haunting and well acted. The best horror reflects real-life fears and situations—and while we’re meant to empathize with Gemma and Tom—I felt for The Boy, and all the real children he resembles.