In Vitro Review (Glasgow Film Festival 2025)

Minimalist Sci-Fi chiller from Australia explores how relationships shape our sense of identity, time, and place.

Set in the unspecified but near future, married couple Layla and Jack run a remote cattle farm. Embracing morally questionable genetic technology means their herd reproduces at unnatural rates.

Long hours, gremlins in the works, and a child away at school are cracking their relationship. However, those cracks become fissures when devastating secrets are revealed.

The film’s title means “within the glass,” referring to creating life within the confines of a test tube. It could also refer to its dual themes of hermetic existences and the fragility of reality. As such, In Vitro asks us to question the methodology of our troubled world and how appallingly personal desire could abuse and manipulate it.

Don’t expect flashy dances with the future yet to come. This grown-up film operates in a claustrophobic sandbox of nuanced body language and telling glances. It dives far deeper into the human condition than the mechanics of science and is all the better for it.

By constructing a believable world with craft and subtlety rather than budget-flaming special effects, the filmmakers have made it easy for themselves and more disturbing for the audience when the time comes to reduce it to faintly glowing embers.

The locations are excellent and the pragmatic lensing enhances geographical tangibility while emphasising character disorientation. As does the accomplished soundtrack that, in a delicate movie such as this one, should not be the main attraction if it’s doing its job well.

Although the cast is tiny, they are perfectly in step with a tone and delivery only possible in the blessed arena of total creative autonomy. Talia Zucker and Ashley Zukerman, as Layla and Jack respectively, know the power of their performances must draw from normality if the audience is to afford them any empathetic shelter from the incoming ethical shitstorm.

The film appears to meander at times, with little happening but the hard graft of an outback couple striving to make a life. However, do not be fooled, it is merely the confident stride of a picture that knows its destination is a brilliantly nailed endgame.

Once the cow dung hits the fan, In Vitro doesn’t panic and start racing around like a genetically enhanced headless chicken. It remains grounded and methodical, stoic it’s quest to fuck with our perceptions without stress testing credulity.

In Vitro takes great pleasure in reminding us how vulnerable we all are to a reality check, primarily during a period when so many worldviews are shaped by fear and misinformation. It also takes a salty stab at our species’ tendency to temper our pain with a comforting mug of self-delusion at the fireside of routine.