The major themes of Arrival, the new sci-fi film directed by Enis Villeneuve (Prisoners), are determinism, language, and the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. Sapir what? Yeah, I know… deep stuff… Meet the Millers this is not. Do not fear (too much) though – Arrival gives you plenty of time, and peace and quiet, to allow the deepness to entrance and the meaning of it all to slowly crystalize in your mind. Just be aware, although the film does include what one would call a space monster, there are no laser beams or death stars – it’s grown-up time in the theater so put your big girl/boy pants on for this one.
Caveats aside, I think most of you will like this film. Although Arrival is certainly one of those movies that will get higher marks from the critics than the viewers, I think it’ll be close with both groups registering high scores. Arrival is good, principally, because it is based on excellent material; that is, Ted Chaing’s Nebula-award winning short story “Story of Your Life.” And the film sticks pretty close to Chiang’s piece. An alien race, labeled heptapods due to their 7-armed radial appearance, has made contact and located 12 spacecraft, randomly it seems, across the earth. Their origin and purpose on our planet are unknown, but they have opened a line of communication allowing access into their stone-like ships every 18 hours and appearing to whomever enters from a wispy environment behind a transparent shield. World powers and their militaries rush to communicate with the extraterrestrials and discover their motives with the U.S. enlisting Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams), a linguistics professor of some renown, as their lead code breaker. As Louise and assigned team member, theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (played by Jeremy Renner), race to develop enough vocabulary to query the aliens on their intent, the creatures’ language begins to affect Banks. Donnelly, observing the impact, asks Banks if she is dreaming in the heptapod’s language – she is not sure… and neither are we. And this is possibly the most interesting aspect of Arrival; the viewer and the film’s protagonist share in the confusion and revelation of the aliens’ arrival, and their un-human and beautiful language, simultaneously. We both view the event as through a glass darkly, so to speak, with understanding coming in a slow and dampened crescendo.
Arrival puts forth some truly curious and fascinating ideas that project into an interesting twist – common attributes of all excellent sci-fi short stories. Being a first-contact story, the film reminds, at times, of Carl Sagan’s Contact, evoking a similar awe and anxiety toward the unknowns of a superior presence. The linguistics emphasis kept reminding me of an old Twilight Zone episode (based on a Damon Knight short story) where a manual belonging to alien visitors, titled “To Serve Man”, is misinterpreted as a guide to the aliens’ altruistic intentions when it is really the first page of a cookbook. But (spoiler alert) nobody gets eaten in this one. Some may prefer a bit of alien teeth gnashing, however, to Arrivals non-action pace and ponderments. My bet, however, is that your brain and heart will win out over the carnal desire for space bedlam and inane photon explosions, and that you’ll appreciate the skilled rendering of this outstanding piece of science fiction. 8 out of 10.
