The trailers for Arrival didn’t really do much to interest me in the film. I went mainly because they had the guts to market their Rotten Tomatoes score a week before the official release. However, the film was extremely moving and I found the story compelling. It would have been easy for it to get bogged down, but I think it was paced well. I give the Arrival the Must See rating.
Arrival lived up to the hype in my eyes
Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams), a is teaching a college class when the alien ships arrive. She and Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) are recruited by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) to attempt to understand the communications. The two work quickly to try and answer the question everyone wants answer: What is your purpose here?
The movie opens with Amy Adams voice over looking out the window of a pretty lakefront scene. We see flashbacks of her with a child that move quickly. The voice over reflects on the short time they spent together and how she better understands Hannah’s story now. Dr. Louise Banks is with her daughter when she dies and it sets up her somber tone in the beginning of the film. We saw a wedding ring in an early flashback, but we never see the husband. She’s now a lone and living her life in quiet solitude.
There is a quiet sadness that Adams is able to portray that makes this film what it is. She’s alone and reacts very differently to the Arrival than most of the world’s population. A day after they arrive she returns to teach and the classroom is empty. It appears she’s ready to go through her routine while everyone else is still in shock. When given the chance to translate the alien language she seems extremely interested in it. The process takes a moment, but she’s soon on a helicopter being taken to the landing sight, 1 of 12, with Ian Donnelly.
Renner and Adams has immediate chemistry. Their first encounter is fairly adorable as Adams isn’t wearing headphones and the helicopter drowns out the sound. Working together to attempt to communicate with the new species they’ve encountered, they quickly develop a close friendship. It’s here that I’m left with little to say about the greatness of this film without getting into spoilers.
Spoilers to Follow
Just to clarify…SPOILERS TO FOLLOW… The alien’s communicate with a symbolic language. Each symbol is essentially a sentence, and it’s several weeks in that Dr. Banks is able to crack it. Each landing site has a country trying to communicate and some are being more forthright than others. China and Russia are both very fearful of the alien ships and seem to be progressing quickly with the translation. When Dr. Banks asks the big question and gets “Offer Weapon” in response, it sends the government into a panic. Communications are cut off and everyone prepares for battle.
The aliens, Hectapods as they begin to be called, have provided us with the ability to see time as they do. Nonlinear time, like shown in other time travel theories like Dr. Manhattan in the Watchmen, allows people to see all past events and future events while living in the present. Each thing that has passed and will passed all exist simultaneously. I won’t reveal anymore of the plot, but that moment really cemented my love of this movie.
Final thoughts on Arrival
This is a film that deals with some interesting topics and poses some big questions. A lot of those questions are never actually spoken in the film though. Yet, if you can wrap your head around nonlinear time then the questions will likely come to you. I walked out of the theater pondering the possibilities of what Dr. Banks’s life would now be like. She has access to so much information and now the weight of carrying it.
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