Arrival | Film Review

Gamelkateinthecinema | Arrival

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Release: 2016
Writers: Screenplay by Eric Heisserer | Novel "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang

Genre: Sci-fi/Mystery/Drama

Rating: PG-13 Strong Language

An intelligent and sensible female leading role a big-budget Hollywood Sci-fi? Is this the film the world has been waiting for?

With the social-political climate of 2017 pushing us more and more towards escapism in film, I had mid-to-low level expectations for Arrival, expecting to see something similar to Interstellar or Independence Day: Resurgence – too much fiction, not enough science. After all if there’s one thing Hollywood is good at, it's American Army vs. the Universe pro-American propaganda films (FYI the new theme is Mars). But I was pleasantly surprised. What French-Canadian Director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners 2013, Sicario 2015), has created felt more like a skilfully composed work of art (which just happens to be shown from an American point of view) … With the bad guys being from China among other foreign nations. Hmm... Maybe I’ll leave that side of the argument alone. Hollywood is Hollywood after all.

Casting Amy Adams as the main character, Linguistics Professor Louise Banks, was a refreshing place to start. The film grew slowly, which I appreciated, following Louise through the arrival of the aliens and the week or so after they had appeared. These slow scenes really helped to show us her character, portraying a realistic model of how we might react to 12 UFO’s showing up. She becomes the heroine of the movie, being one of the only people smart enough to be able to try to learn a new alien language. Although she does well, she still has failings and side affects, once again keeping the audience empathetic. It is hard not to like Amy Adams.

Already Arrival felt different to other Hollywood alien movies – we follow the quiet and lonely, resourceful and intelligent Louise throughout the film, watching her interact and make progress with these massive creatures. The arrival totally changes her life and behavioural patterns, ending with her realisation that she is part of something much bigger than herself. This is a deliberate plot device by Villeneuve, as this mirrors her interaction with the aliens. The audience is able to observe and understand Louise's behaviour to a point, just as she is able to observe the aliens. Once the point of communication and understanding has been reached  and then overtaken, the film reveals another dimension. Villeneuve reinforces this when he reveals the whole alien and their reason for coming to Earth, whereas before we were only seeing fragments. This is a film all about seeing things from different perspectives.

The moment we first see the alien ship or ‘Shell’ is one of my favourite scenes for composition. The natural elements of the rolling clouds and green fields are juxtaposed by this unnatural presence. I don’t think many sci-fi movies give you a proper sense of scale - ships in space look big but the concept of space itself is so overwhelming that the ship always ends up looking small to me, or the monster will destroy the entire city and people will still be going about their lives as if they didn’t notice. Arrival sticks with the simplicity of the obelisk to powerful effect.

I also liked the functional approach to the set design and costume. The army camp was a series of adjoining tents, the decontamination suits were bulky and unflattering, and the inside of the alien ship was minimal. Procedures such as anti-infection injections were explained and above all logical, and real equipment was used in matter of fact ways, such as the white Toyotas and the scissor lift, and the white board Louise uses to talk to the aliens. These grounding factors made Arrival feel real, as if the aliens had landed last week with no time for humans to design and make futuristic-looking tools or machinery.

 If you haven't seen Arrival by now, you must not be a sci-fi fan. Villeneuve delivers a thought provoking modern take on the age-old theme of first contact. 

Rating: 7/10

All images taken from official Arrival Trailer/s 2016, copyright to Sony Pictures Releasing International and FilmNation Entertainment. 

I do not own the rights to any of these images. All text is written by me and is my own personal opinion.