n a time that is almost tomorrow, Andreas (Getty) and his scientist parents are escaping city life. However, this isn't the typical suburban dream of pink flamingos and green lawns. The ozone layer is almost nonexistent and life has mostly withered or slunk underground to escape deadly UV rays. But Andreas' eccentric father Hank (Karyo) has an experiment planned to help nature heal itself.
The new home doubles as a lab, but before the china and Erlenmeyer flasks are unpacked, things run awry. An accidental mix of water, electricity and fungus turns the father-scientist into a mercurial mass of mossy electrons. Next green patches, then plants, emerge on the walls and percolate up from the floors. Almost overnight the house becomes a petri dish, a greenhouse, then a full-blown rainforest, and this verdure has disturbing, sentient qualities.
Andreas feels abandoned by his father. His mother Clarissa (Krige), seeking to reassure him of his father's love, tells him a secret -- Andreas was genetically altered before birth to be able to withstand the deadly UV light from which others must hide. This inheritance is not welcome, though. It's tough just being the new kid on the block without being a bona fide mutant besides.
But diversity has its advantages, perhaps, as Andreas' biology teacher reminds him. She notes that the great famine of Ireland might not have occurred if farmers had planted an additional variety of potato, instead of propagating conformity. But the argument for diversity is small comfort to Andreas as he is assaulted by surly classmates who mistrust his uniqueness.
Freakish, yet almost intelligent
Habitat is a strange soup -- sometimes a reeking swill -- of scientific theory, teeny-bopper outsider angst and sex (badly Freudian, sometimes creepily puerile). The individuals responsible for this melange accept its schlock pedigree, but have a weird respect for it too. This makes the film thoroughly bad, but entertaining -- stupid, yet sometimes funny. The film also has, until the very end, an uneasy, somewhat intriguing ambiguity. It's not precisely clear if dull, suffocating normalcy or bizarre, revolutionary newness is the better course for the individual or society.
Although almost plotless, Habitat manages to be watchable, largely because of its freakish, almost intelligent, look at family, society and science. The acting, while hard to qualify as good, is at least reasonable and only rarely ridiculous. A strong thumbs down, though, to Habitat's prurient use of the breast. About once every 30 minutes, nubile mammary glands erupt into view, making the use of the breast in a thespian effort like Melrose Place seem almost clinical in comparison.
The film's essence is captured in one of its own lines. As Andreas returns from a skinny-dipping escapade with his girlfriend, she has been burned by the sun while he is unscathed. The soundtrack pings poignantly with a lone guitar as she muses in a scratchy, wondering whisper, "Remember what Mrs. Johnson said in biology class? About that famine in Ireland and how just one different spud would have made all the difference?" (pause) "It's you, isn't it? You're that one potato..."
