Arrival review: a soulful sci-fi instant classic

Director Denis Villeneuve successfully merges hard sci-fi and real emotion in one of the best films of the year

• By Bryan Bishop

Share on Facebook Tweet Share (5) Pin (1)

Early on in Denis Villeneuve’s new film Arrival, it becomes pretty clear that for an alien invasion movie, it’s actually not all that interested in aliens. As 12 mysterious spacecraft land in different locations around Earth, we see college students getting texted with the news, newscasters describing it, and a linguistics expert played by Amy Adams taking it all in — but we don’t see the ships themselves. Humanity’s reaction is what’s important, and it’s only after the film has slowly, methodically established its priorities that the ships — or "shells," as they’re dubbed — are revealed.

It sets the tone for what’s to come: a mature, thoughtful piece of science fiction that uses a first contact premise not just as a set-up for a doomsday scenario, but as a platform for an incredibly powerful and nuanced look at love, relationships, and the human condition itself. If big-screen sci-fi has been going through a maturation process over the past few years, searching for a truly genre-defining moment, it has finally arrived.

Warning: minor spoilers ahead

The films opens as Dr. Louise Banks (Adams) struggles with the death of her teenaged daughter, trying to find solace in her daily routine — one that’s suddenly interrupted when the 12 shells appear on Earth and the government comes asking for her help. It turns out they’ve been able to establish some minimal contact with the alien creatures in the shells, but their language is unlike anything known to man. Joining forces with a theoretical physicist named Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), Banks goes inside the ship and meets the aliens face-to-tentacle, where she slowly starts learning their language and teaching them ours. She’s convinced their intentions are good, but with shells located all around the globe other countries are having their own interactions, and soon Banks finds herself trying to uncover the reason behind the visit before China or Russia kick off a war with the aliens.

Accessible without ever shying away from the science in sci-fi

That’s the most broad, generic description of the film I can possibly provide, and that’s where I’m going to leave it, because Arrival is a film that’s not so much built up out of plot points and story beats as it of emotional and character turns. Adapted from Ted Chiang’s short story "Story of Your Life", it’s a film that doesn’t flinch when it comes to serious discussion of linguistics, math, or the complex semagrams the aliens use for their written language, but screenwriter Eric Heisserer (Lights Out) is remarkably deft in his ability to use those concepts in service of character and theme. The result is a movie that feels remarkably accessible, even when it’s tackling dense concepts that would normally be verboten in a studio film.

Another huge component of that is the work of Villeneuve himself. The director has been steadily building a rich body of work with movies like Sicario and Prisoners, and working with cinematographer Bradford Young (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) he creates a beautiful world of cool, symmetrical compositions and ever-patient camera moves. It would be foolish to avoid the Kubrick comparisons — several shots when Banks and Donnelly first enter the alien ship read like direct callbacks to 2001: A Space Odyssey — but that trademarked sterility isn’t just artifice; it’s the nature of the world Villeneuve is creating here. Whether it’s Banks, Donnelly, or the head of the Chinese military, everyone is alone, and can’t find it within themselves to connect with one another, even in the face of world-changing circumstances.

The promise of overcoming that inability to communicate — not just with aliens, but with one another — is what lies is at the heart of the film, and it’s an idea that’s brought forward most directly by the performance of Amy Adams. As an actor, we’ve seen Adams play a variety of roles covering a range of colors, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her so raw and emotionally compelling. Watching her struggle with the alien language, driven by memories of her daughter, is like mainlining empathy, pushing the film towards a crescendo of an ending that is as quietly triumphant as it is heart-wrenching.
Watching Amy Adams' performance is like mainlining empathy

The funny thing is that we’ve seen swings at this kind of thing before — and more recently than you might think. In 2014, Interstellar launched with the ambitious mission of using a hard sci-fi story to explore the notions of legacy and sacrifice between a father and a daughter. With the talent of Christopher Nolan, a lead actor at peak McConaissance, and theoretical physicist Kip Thorne all on board, expectations were understandably high. While the end result was lovingly rendered, ultimately it fell short — and it wasn’t because the film’s puzzle-like construction or loop-around ending were too convoluted.

It failed because it didn’t resonate emotionally, leaving all the grand themes and ambitions inert and lifeless. The extraordinary success of Arrival is that it combines its bravura style and grand sci-fi questions with tremendous emotional intelligence and a heart so full it’s ready to burst. It’s a film that dares us to look ahead, to open ourselves up to vulnerability and sacrifice, and to take chances and engage with the world around us, no matter what dire consequences we fear may be just around the corner. That transcends genre or even medium. It is simply art, and at a time when so many seem intent on walling themselves or their countries off from one another, it’s exactly what we need.

Arrival is scheduled for release on November 11th.