"Arrival" Review

 Arrival is a sci-fi mystery drama thriller film directed by Denis Villeneuve, written by Eric Heisserer from the short story "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, and starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, and Michael Stuhlbarg. The film follows linguistics professor and former government translator Louise Banks (Adams), who is recruited by a US government official (Whitaker) to attempt to translate the conversations with an alien race who have positioned twelve ominous monolithic "shell" spacecraft at different landing points across the globe, including one in a field in Montana, to try to interpret whether they have visited Earth for peaceful or hostile purposes. What follows from Louise learning their written language while trying to subvert any aggression on the part of foreign governments is something I'll leave you to find out for yourself. With Arrival, what begins as a perfectly well-realized and thought-provoking foray into modern science fiction filmmaking soon turns into an emotional, enthralling mindfuck whose believability and effectiveness can be credited primarily to the realization of the concepts in Chiang's brilliant short story by Eric Heisserer, and the performance of Amy Adams.

On a technical level, Arrival is a consistently impressive work. Cinematographer Bradford Young utilizes director Denis Villeneuve's penchant for heady examinations of humanity being photographed in incredibly naturalistic ways that Roger Deakins perfected in Prisoners and Sicario, and while this is by no means Villeneuve's best-shot film, Young's camerawork is still sumptuous and even breathtaking at times, particularly a sweeping reveal shot of the alien spacecraft and the military base camp surrounding it toward the beginning. Johann Johannson's ominous score packs an emotional punch, especially when the film takes a turn for the surreal.

Heisserer's script and Villeneuve's direction are also carried out in a way that emphasizes grounded realism mostly to the film's best ability. Villeneuve has a particular talent for making his twists and tension feel earned and easily found crawling under the viewer's skin by setting up his worlds and characters in very grounded and believable ways. The story's handling of the minute details, both in feeling and in action, of an alien invasion on Earth is believable enough that we accept with open arms the times in the story that the film becomes more surreal and mind-bending, and also begins to bring up its more challenging concepts. The scenes at the beginning of the film of the immediate aftermath of the landing is one of the most memorable and effective in the film for me, as are some of the developments in the months following, such as news of a cult group lighting their compound on fire in a case of mass suicide in response to the aliens, and the rantings of a right-wing anti-government conspiracy theorist on talk radio blaming the problem on the president. These details are mostly relegated to the background, and indeed only serve as added bonuses in the story of Louise, but they're noticeable and make the world of Arrival seem that much more authentic.

This isn't to say the film doesn't have its moments of breaking from believability, oddly enough very few of them having to do with aliens. Not to spoil anything, but there's one scene involving the actions of a few unnamed soldiers that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and is sort of improperly built up, and the film does have its share of lines that cross into the realm of moderate cheese ("What happens now?" "They arrive."). These aren't film-ruining problems, but when the rest of the story and technical aspects of the film make the world so lusciously believable, they are noticeable. Such issues are relatively few and far between, though, and the script, on a thematic and tonal level, is rather airtight.

The emotional complexity of Amy Adams's performance, which is one of the very best of her impressive career, couples with the most brilliant aspects of Heisserer's script to create a sci-fi filmgoing experience that's rich and thought-provoking, even dipping its toes into the realm of mind-bending toward the end of its second act. Arrival really is a film about Louise and about communication, and while the film's marketing may not give you that idea, the script is filled with several slyly hidden and subtle hints from the very start of the film to the themes and concepts that unfold following the revelation of the film's slow-burning twist. And not to be that guy all the time, but at its core, the film's message, which is rather simple but is unfolded in an original, complex, and interesting way, is one that I feel is rather timely and important - that is, it is a film about the importance of diplomacy and communication. In a very bizarre and trippy way, Arrival is the story of a woman teaching the world how to try and understand foreign ways of thinking in order to better communicate for the betterment of both parties rather than initial hostility at anything different. I know this election season has a brutal one so the politicization of anything is particularly likely to flare up emotions right now, but art doesn't exist in a vacuum and I found the movie's underlying message to be refreshing and appropriate for the current political climate.

Overall, Arrival is sort of the stuff of sci-fi classics. I can easily see it sitting up with the likes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind or 2001: A Space Odyssey, science fiction that is thoughtful and challenging, but ultimately gets to the core essences of humanity and examines them through fantastical, yet scarily plausible, scenarios. It explores communication, perception, and problem solving in such a fascinating way that I feel bad keeping you in the dark on how it does - it makes a lot of my praises sound very vague and odd, but I truly want you to unpack this movie step by step as you watch it like I did. Especially if you're unfamiliar with the short story as I was, watching Arrival is like an engrossing puzzle. Is it straightforward? Yes. Does that make it any less engaging? Absolutely not.

And if you'd rather bypass all that, you'll still get an entertaining and intriguing sci-fi story (though, be warned, one that is not filled with action or disaster sequences - spoilers?), a terrific performance from Amy Adams, and some beautiful camerawork and a haunting musical score. Ex Machina - and to a lesser extent Interstellar - now have company as thinking man's sci-fi movies of this generation.

Grade: A