Arrival

Score:  **** out of ***** (A-)

Directed by Denis Villeneuve
Starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker
Running time: 116 minutes
Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  Arrival is another alien encounter sci-fi film, but not at all what you're expecting.  Denis Villeneuve, having shown so much skill with both tension and personal challenge in previous films, is the perfect filmmaker for this ostensibly much different story.  With Amy Adams leading the drama in a strong performance, the film is more concerned with what alien contact might mean for humanity beyond just who blows up who.


In the span of a few minutes, the life of a young girl with her mother, Louise (Adams), unfolds and is tragically cut short by illness.  Louise, a linguist, teaches at a university when normal life is abruptly interrupted by the appearance of twelve alien craft, spread around the world.  The military, led by Col. Weber, soon comes to Louise in hopes of finding a way to communicate with the alien visitors.  Intrigued, Louise agrees and goes with them to Montana, where she meets the team including physicist Ian (Renner).  Operating from a small make-shift base, the team goes into the alien ship.  They encounter two individuals who make odd, indecipherable noises.  Although she is overwhelmed by them at first, Louise remains determined, and becomes convinced that written communication is mankind's best hope of understanding the aliens.

While Louise and Ian became fascinated by the intellectual process of understanding the aliens, their military commanders pressure them to work faster and faster.  Society begins to crumble under the stress of the alien presence, and other nations faced with alien ships in their territory also begin to lose patience.  Resting on Louise's shoulders, then, may be the fate of civilization itself.

Arrival operates with a small cast, and focuses even more narrowly on its lead.  Amy Adams takes on that lead role as Louise, and she is tremendous.  Of course, Adams has proven herself one of today's top actors already and she readily takes on this complex - and not particularly sci-fi-y - role.  She brings Louise to life, a woman more comfortable as a curious, highly intelligent academic woman than her personal side which she keeps to herself.  Louise first develops a professional rapport with Ian, only slowly becoming closer on a personal level as they are confined together on the base.  Encouragingly, Louise remains not only the more active but also the primary character in the film, not giving way to Ian.  Personal stakes do eventually come into play for Louise, and Adams handles them in a way appropriate for the character (i.e. controlled), rather than succumbing to Hollywood norms.  Jeremy Renner is also very good, perhaps for his restraint more than anything else.  Optimistic, though not cheerful, Ian is a team player who does not try to become the star of the show, offering crucial support for the lonely and stressed Louise.  Beyond Louise and Ian, the roles are few and small; Whitaker's Weber is torn between support for Louise and military duty to achieve its objectives as quickly as possible; and Michael Stuhlbarg is a sarcastic agent focused on America's coming out on top in the situation, regardless of the consequences.

Arrival is a brand-new flavor of sci-fi film, one that is flawed yet powerful and represents great hope as a melding of popular and artistic styles.  Like Christopher Nolan's Interstellar (more comparisons to this to come), Arrival is not a simple us-vs.-them shoot out.  There is plenty of tension, yes, but both films' primary mission is to engage your mind by using the tangible strangeness of sci-fi to look inward at humanity and the self.  Again, Arrival shares similar themes to the Nolan film: both the importance and lack thereof of time, and the need to put aside societal differences to advance the common causes (or to prevent the common destruction) of humanity.  A new element is that of communication and language, which plays into both of the others.  The details still demand a certain suspension of disbelief, of course, but I would argue it's the concepts that count.  The emotional elements are much more restrained in Arrival, but the main twist is fascinating (**highlight the blank area after this if you want to read spoilers**).  Louise's flash-forwarding to her daughter's life is both ingenious and heartbreaking.  I personally feel it actually could have been made even more affecting, with a tweaking of other elements in the film, but opinions on this will vary.

Fear not, Arrival is not just some abstract examination of ideas (Tree of Life this is not, thankfully).  The build up to the aliens in the first third or so of the film is riveting, and most reminiscent of the director Villeneuve's other work.  It's all quiet and very real, given just enough information and atmosphere (empty seminar rooms, roaring jet engines) to feel something big coming - not to mention a very eerie and affecting soundtrack.  Getting suited up to go into the alien ship, Adams breathes hard and noisily, echoing the audience's feelings.  Then the film admittedly bogs down a bit; there's only so much you can do to enliven the process of essentially language translation, I suppose.  But there is constant pressure to the intellectual work being done, with occasional news footage of rioting and tension among nations shown.  The ending, in fact, is surprisingly nail-biting in bringing the fate of the world to a last second confrontation at the base.  Impressively though, thanks to the script and directing, there is more intrigue in solving the film's idea riddles than in the exciting yet comparatively empty goal of preventing humanity's destruction.

***

Arrival is a great film, but I'm finding it one of the more difficult films to grade in a satisfactory way.  Once again, I come back to the comparison to Interstellar.  Both films reach for much more than the usual sci-fi genre, and appeal as both entertainment as art, which raises them (for me) to a certain minimum score.  Arrival is also made with the care and high-quality that I've come to expect from director Denis Villeneuve, one of my new favorites.  But I also feel it is missing a certain something, perhaps a crucial last link between the intellectual and emotional elements that could make it truly memorable.  It does also have its flaws, notably a pace that sometimes bogs down and a few odd elements in the script that are out of place.  I think it's easier to for me to nitpick these ambitious, hybrid films but Arrival's strengths still far outweigh its weaknesses.  From Adams' performance to the tremendous opening to the development of interesting ideas to the resolving personal twist, it has more positive things to offer than either flaws or just run-of-the-mill sci-fi.  Highly recommended.



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