Review 396: Arrival

Arrival is a wonderful, mesmirising, sic-fi film, a showcase for another brilliant performance by Amy Adams and the directorial talents of Denis Villeneuve and one of the most touching, emotional and all around best sic fi films of recent years.

Based on the short story Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang, When twelve extraterrestrial spacecraft appear in strategic points across the Earth, linguistic Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is asked by the U.S. military to join a team consisting of Astrophysicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) and U.S. military officer Col. Weber (Forest Whitaker) to learn about and study the aliens as well as communicate with them and discover why they are here.

The plot is one of the most thoughtful, touching, moving and well realised sci fi plots of recent years, not only is it an incredibly poigent peice of writing, it's a story about learning language and what language does to the way we think or the preconceptions we have about how the world communicates with each other.

What Arrival does so well is show us that communication is so much broader than just language.
It's not about saying hello and goodbye, it's the communication, kindness, support, friendship which are what langue is about, like a glue that binds us together. Even though the film is about an alien invasion, it shows how humans relate to it each other. 

Louise knows what will happen what will happen to her in the future very specifically but in a general sense, her situation is similar to the one that we are all in because we all know certain things about our future i.e. we are all going to die and there is nothing that we can do to change that. We all have this awareness of our mortality. So the question this film poses through her is If you can avoid falling into despair, despite these things that you are unable to change, can she cope with that knowledge and find a way to move forward and live life as best she can  "Despite knowing the journey and where it leads, I embrace it" she tells herself.

Director Denis Villeneuve's direction is sensitive and economical providing the film with an appropriate sense of wonder and pacing. The cinematography is fabulous (providing the film with a mystical and atmospheric tone with lots of emphasis on natural light to give it a grounded tone). The production design is magnificent; the Heptapod chamber in particular, is a highlight: a gloomy cavernous chamber that  the costumes are excellent, the score by Jóhann Jóhannsson is beautiful, the special effects are elegant, the make up is rich and the effect of the closing scene is deeply affecting emotionally.

The acting is fantastic, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner & Forest Whitaker are superb in this film.

Amy Adams is simply mesmerising playing Dr. Louise Banks. As Kenneth Turan of the LA Times put it: "Her ability to quietly and effectively meld intelligence and empathy" prove invaluable to establishing contact between the U.S. and word governments and the Heptapods.

Louise is recruited by the military because she is the U.S's foremost expert in linguistics and eventually is allowed to communicate with the them. As the film goes on and they learn to communicate better, Louise enters a relationship with Ian Donnelly; their's is a poignant and 

Jeremy Renner is terrific as Ian Donnelly. Throughout the film, he and Banks provide good counterpoints for each other. Ian is the realist of the film, he’s trying  His life has always been about looking towards the stars with his head in the clouds because he has a scientific mind and has always wondered about life outside of him. He’s always somewhere else and wondering about other things   

Forest Whitaker proves to be a strong & commanding presence as Col. Weber. Normally in films like this, the military general is an idiot and he's one step behind our "heroes", they're often ridiculed and they always arrive at the scene of the resolution late.
Col. Weber is a truly rare case of a level-headed, calm, collected, not to mention reasonable military figure in movies like this. He certainly recognises Louise and Ian are experts in their respective fields and holds a great deal of respect towards them in that regard. They do occasionally butt heads but that's presented very realistically as a case of their conflicting views and recognises when they get results.
Whenever he does question their actions, he only wants to question their motivations so he can justify their actions to his superiors.
He also recognises the seriousness of the situation and what stakes are on the table, which is why he doesn't act without solid, logical, reasoning behind it.

Michael Stuhlbarg and Tzi Ma round out the films small cast with functional but effective performances.

5/5.

The Anonymous Critic.