2016 | Dir. Denis Villeneuve | 116 Minutes
"If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?"
One morning, a dozen alien spacecraft appear hovering over seemingly arbitrary locations across the globe. The US government recruits linguist Louise Banks to establish communication with the extraterrestrial lifeforms onboard a vessel over Montana. Tensions mount as Earth's governments fail to understand the intentions of the alien visitors and disagree over the need to take military action. Dr. Banks races against the clock to learn more about the aliens in order to prevent Earth's leaders from making a potentially devastating mistake.
Adapted by screenwriter Eric Heisserer from Ted Chiang's short story "Story of Your Life," Arrival posits that the human race needs to resolve its own terrestrial communication issues and prejudices before it can reasonably interact with other intelligent lifeforms. The central conflict of the film has less to do with the otherworldly heptapods it features and more to do with the opposing interests of humanity as a whole. The film's narrative center is on Dr. Banks, emotionally-distant at the start of the film but eventually establishing a meaningful human connection of her own, only to be faced with possibly the greatest existential challenge imaginable. While visually impressive, director Denis Villeneuve's vision harkens back to classic science fiction parables such as Robert Wise's The Day The Earth Stood Still and numerous episodes of Rod Sterling's Twilight Zone in that the central focus of the film is on the flaws inherent in humanity and its potential to rise above them.
Amy Adams turns in an amazing performance as Louise Banks, showcasing an incredibly broad but controlled range in an extraordinarily emotionally complex role. Jeremy Renner plays opposite Adams for most of the film's run time as theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly, dialing up his trademark snarky charm. Ever-reliable character actor Forest Whitaker also features as Colonel GT Weber, a good soldier bound to his duty, reluctantly overseeing an operation that involves scientists who refuse to follow orders.
Arrival is an exemplary work of science fiction focusing primarily on the importance of communication. It's also a thoughtful meditation on humanity's response to the unknown on both a macro scale and a profoundly personal level. The film is both cautiously optimistic and deeply heartbreaking.
FRAGMENTS
- Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner previously appeared together in David O. Russell's American Hustle
- The film's composer Jóhann Jóhannsson and director Denis Villeneuve previously collaborated on Prisoners and Sicario
- In English, the message Dr. Banks whispers in Mandarin to General Shang is: "In war, there are no winners, only widows."
MCU CONNECTIONS
- Jeremy Renner (Clint Barton in Thor, The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers: Endgame)
- Michael Stuhlbarg (Nicodemus West in Doctor Strange and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness)
- Forest Whitaker (Zuri in Black Panther)
