![]() This is about a grieving mother learning to cope with the death of her daughter, and understand that even though death is inevitable the time before death is still worthwhile.Īrrival is a story about grief, and making connections, and aliens, and time. The second narrative is about tragedy, as we follow the story of how Louise’s daughter Hannah grew up, why her father left them, and how Hannah dies. No, I’m not going to tell you what it is. Yes, I have no problem saying that there is a time travel element to this story. Arrival becomes a story about overcoming differences, and learning to cooperate with one another.įor those with an eagle eye, the first time the Heptapod language is explained, a big twist is given away. Tensions mount as the nations of the world start refusing to share. Louise and Ian are learning to communicate with their Heptapod ship, even as eleven other nations around the world begin to communicate with their own ships. Within their language, past, present and future happen all at once. They write in beautiful, arching spheres, with no sense of linear time. The movie spends a lot of time and energy on discussing the Heptapods’ written language. We get Louise and Ian learning how to communicate with Abbot and Costello. In Arrival, we get two stories, and both are equally interesting. ![]() I’m not sure what school she’s a professor of linguistics at, but there is no way on Earth (pun intended) that she can afford a beautiful modern home in the woods overlooking mountains. The only thing that stretches my suspension of disbelief when it comes to Louise is how nice her house is. She’s a workaholic, a loner, has a sense of humor, empathy, and everything else that an interesting lead in a movie like this needs to have. From a spaceship hovering over a field in Montana, to Amy Adams framed by the sunset streaming through her backyard window, to the interior of the spaceship itself, every frame suggests a world that is vast and expansive. Sharply aware of the pastiche of its particular sub-genre, Arrival focuses on what makes it so smart.Įvery shot of this film is beautiful. I can see where all these elements of famous science fiction staples were drawn together to make this film, but this is far from a bad thing. Hell, I can see E.T. in Louise’s growing connection to the Heptapods, and Slaughterhouse Five in the nature of the aliens themselves. I can even see Independence Day in the scale of the story. I can see The War of the Worlds in the design of the aliens, and District 9 in the TV news footage of the world’s reaction to their arrival. I can see 2001: A Space Odyssey and Interstellar in the aesthetics of the alien ships. I can hear Close Encounters of the Third Kind in sound effects of the Heptapods. Maybe not to everyone in the audience, but to someone like me, who lives and breathes science fiction of this nature to the point that it’s tattooed on my body, I can see where all the elements come from. Arrival has billed itself as a film of intelligence, and it remains so to a fault.īut still, Arrival is intensely aware that it belongs to a canon. In Louise and Ian, I can see every goofy pair of scientists in science fiction, sidelined as the comic relief while someone brash and bold fires a rocket wrapped in the American flag to save the day. Right away this is where Arrival separates itself from so many other “first contact” movies. Together, they are charged with finding a way to communicate with the visitors.Īs Louise and Ian learn to communicate with the Heptapods (cheekily dubbed Abbot and Costello by Ian), Louise begins to uncover the Heptapods’ strange circular written language, which has no beginning or end, and begins to have flashbacks to her daughter Hannah, who died of an incurable disease. Professor of linguistics “Louise Banks” (Amy Adams) is recruited by the US government and sent to the alien arrival sight in Montana, where she is partnered with “Ian Donnelly” (Jeremy Renner), a theoretical physicist. I mean that as the highest of praise, incidentally. And yet as the movie began, I couldn’t help but feel I’d seen this all before. I knew this was going to be a movie about first contact with aliens. ![]() I was pleasantly surprised to see Forest Whitaker around the ten minute mark. I knew that it was starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. I knew that it was based on the short story “Story of Your Life” by author Ted Chiang which I have not read (it’s on the shelf). Walking into Arrival, directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Eric Heisserer, I only knew a little about the movie.
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