Plot: When twelve mysterious spacecraft appear around the world, linguistics professor Louise Banks is tasked with interpreting the language of the apparent alien visitors.
Since I haven’t read one bad review about Arrival and about ten million people asked me whether I’d seen it, I was really rather excited to get to this. I also loved Sicario, which at that stage had been my exposure to director Dennis Villeneuve’s work.
Arrival is one of the most unique and well thought out films I’ve watch in ages. It is some of the best work I’ve seen from 2016, and would certainly have altered my Top Ten list of 2016. Villeneuve has a talent to direct the dark and dreary. His signature style is tense and the subsequent underlying tension makes him a formidable force to watch in the future. He knows how to get the most intense emotions from his films’ stars, most evident in the way Amy Adams, Jermey Renner and Forrest Whitaker portray their part of Arrival.
I guess I see now why people were so riled up when Amy Adams was not nominated for best actress. She was fantastic as Louise, a linguist who is tasked to extraterrestrial beings when they mysteriously appear in random locations across the globe. The lingual exploration was fascinating, which explored the dissection of communication and language. It made me realize that we take language for granted and how it forms and changes us. Talking is so natural, we rarely pause to consider how remarkable it is that we are talking.
I am also appreciative that Villeneuve once again provided a film with such a strong female lead. He obviously has an appreciation for strong female characters – can we have more of him please?!
I always feel like a complete noob when talking about CGI. Visual design is one of the areas where I truly have no experience in (or a desire to get experience in). My adventures into more serious films have shown me however how much tone and proper CGI can affect a film. Arrival has incredible CGI. The Aliens are formed in a way that is slightly revolting and highly fascinating, light years away from our perception of beady eyed human forms. There is a particular scene with Adams that was mesmerizing – I get goosebumps just thinking about it. The directing also is sad and heavy and dark, and impresses the sadness which Adams’ character carries with her.
The eventual conclusion to this two hour masterpiece will stay with you – I am still wondering about the implications of it all. The focus, despite the entire plot, is not truly on the Aliens. It is more about how would we even talk to Aliens should they arrive on the planet.
Rating: A well-deserved 9/10
Life of this city girl 
I’m so glad you loved this! I counted myself in for Amy Adams and Villenueve alone and went in on opening weekend completely blind. That final 20 minutes or so just stunned me! I wish I could see it again for the first time, if you know what I mean 🙂
It is an excellent film. I didn’t want it to end! The ending was crazy. I understand exactly what you mean! I’d love to watch it again without knowing what will happen.
This is one of my favorite movies now. It is such a great metaphor for the way nations on earth communicate and the way we tend to misinterpret what is said in different languages. I think it’s even in some ways an anti-war message.
Firstly – sorry for the crazy delayed response.
This film is great – so smart and well executed. It is such a deep look into communication, and it is so rare that you think of a film so long afterwards, and yet with this I do. I like the metaphor you just highlighted – in South Africa alone we have eleven official languages – people misunderstand each other so often.
Love this movie so much. A true masterpiece and Amy Adams was robbed to not be nominated for an Oscar. Also deserved Best Picture.
She was fantastic and deserved an Oscar. This director makes things I love so much – so dark and thoughtful.
He’s amazing. I’m definitely a fan of his now. Also loved Sicario despite it not being my sort of genre.
Mine either – surprised the hell out of me!