In Arrival, Earth is visited by mysterious aliens (which we dub Heptapods). Twelve of their spacecraft touch down in various different locations around Earth. Top linguist Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) are brought in in an attempt to communicate with the Heptapods and learn what their true intent is. Do they mean us harm, or is their prescence meant to be more beneficial?
Both Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner do fantastic jobs as Louise and Ian. Their performances may be the best I've seen from them. Arrival is a film that demands your full attention and participation. It wants you to try to figure out exactly what is going on. The film lays a jumbled jigsaw puzzle at viewers feet and encourages us to take our time putting it together (and when you finally figure it out for yourself, man is it rewarding).
Arrival is talkative, intelligent sci-fi (much like last year's Ex Machina). The first two acts are fairly slow and kind of plod along, but it's in the film's third act where Arrival really shines as the puzzle pieces start to fit together and the whole picture of what is going on is revealed. There are many layers at work in Arrival. It's not just a film about first contact, but also about time, love, loss, communciation/language and unity (in fact, the first few minutes of the film echo those of Up!). It's a deeply emotional, touching, hopeful, tragic and powerful film that contains numerous messages and deep themes for us to unravel at our own leisure. This is definitely one that you'll likely be thinking about a good deal of time after leaving the theater.
The cinematography (by Bradford Young) is exquisite and subtle, the direction (by Denis Villeneuve, who rarely disappoints) is fantastic, the editing (by Joe Walker) is handled exceptionally well and is a crucial part of the film, and the screenplay (by Eric Heisserer) is exceptional. If the screenplay for Arrival doesn't make it into the Oscars, I'd be seriously disappointed. While Arrival certainly wasn't made for mass audiences (The film is appropriately deep and heady), I'd imagine those that this was made for will eat it up gladly. Personally, I loved the hell out of this film and found it to be a challenging, poignant, beautiful and deeply rewarding experience. There is no doubt in my mind that this film was released at exactly the right time, we need this film and it's messages right now. Arrival is definitely well worth your time and money.
5 STARS
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