Certification. 12A
Running Time. 1 hour 56 mins
Director. Denis Villeneuve
Cast. Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker.
Rating. 92%
As the evocative strains of Max Richter's tragic elegy On The Nature of Daylight permeate over the opening shots, a bittersweet sensation envelopes Arrival. In a dream-like prelude, the audience is provided with the first insight into what's about to unfold. We witness an emotional montage from the life of Dr Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and her young daughter. We are led to believe that Dr Banks has suffered a devastating loss. The sequence, a brief life encapsulated in still briefer summary, is heartbreaking and while initially appears to be mere backstory, is in fact more, perhaps the most crucial thread in Villeneuve's intricately woven film.
The screenplay was written by Eric Heisserer, adapted and expanded from an award-winning short story by Ted Chiang, Story Of Your Life. A storyline which at first glance appears to be an innocuous tale of aliens in enormous pod-shaped crafts arriving on Earth, at 12 random locations around the world. Nobody knows why.
The aforementioned Dr Banks, a brilliant linguistics academic, is called upon to study the language of the aliens to deduce why they are here. Efforts at verbal communication are unsuccessful, but written language proves more promising. This is Amy Adams' film, her performance is mesmerising. She gives a powerful, layered, and deeply emotional performance. Potentially, a career best.
Arrival is the perfect blend of Denis Villeneuve's strengths - rich, incisive character development and evocative cinematography. The bright, exuberant imagery of many a science fiction film are replaced by subdued, but striking visual effects. There is an epic intimacy to Arrival, similar to Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. Whereas in Nolan's Interstellar has moments of wistful melancholy, "In a heartwrenching scene, Cooper [Matthew McConaughey] watches two decades' worth of stockpiled messages from his children," Arrival ensures that same feeling of desolation is constant throughout, and elevated by the emotional punch at the end of the film.
Denis Villeneuve subverts expectations at every stage and creates an absolute masterclass in how to narrate a story that becomes much more than just the sum of its parts. It would be a disservice to Villeneuve's craft to describe how the plot gradually unfolds, but it is a pleasure to watch it unfold - and for the audience to accept the film's true meaning at different points in the journey.
Science fiction is never really about the future or far off galaxies; it is usually always about us, and whilst Arrival may initially appear to be about first contact with alien life forms, it is fundamentally about humanity itself. The film is more concerned with deep truths about language, memory and human relationships than any one global political event. Somehow, Villeneuve turns a theme fundamental to human existence into something deeper still.
Denis Villeneuve's Arrival is a remarkable piece of cinema. Visionary, cerebral and contemplative.
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