Arrival
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Stars: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker
Duration: 116 mins
Class: 12
KRS Releasing Ltd

Over the past few years, Hollywood has clearly taken it upon itself to offer audiences an exceptional, out-of-this world sci-fi movie and this year is no exception. After the emotional journey of 2013’s Gravity, the existential musings of Interstellar in 2014, and the survivalism of last year’s The Martian (not to mention the blockbusting Star Wars: The Force Awakens) comes Arrival, a quietly intense story at whose heart is an all-too-topical theme of the importance of communication in a hostile world.

Arrival is a film that eschews action and adventure for a cinematic experience that is stimulating for both the head and the heart.

In a career-best performance, Amy Adams stars as Dr Louise Brooks, an expert linguist mourning the loss of her daughter to a rare disease by throwing herself into her work. She is summoned to Montana by the authorities –  Montana is one of 12 worldwide locations where gigantic, mysterious pods have landed from outer space and simply stand majestically over their surroundings.

Brooks’s expertise is needed to communicate with the beings within the pods to try and fathom their purpose – and she must do so under pressure from some of the nations’ leaders, whose twitchy fingers threaten to start an interplanetary conflict.

Arrival is directed by Denis Villeneuve, whose previous two films were the excellent, if rather bleak and uncompromising, crime thrillers Prisoners and Sicario. Both the latter featured authentic and complex characters facing some pretty murky moral dilemmas. Venturing into sci-fi, Villeneuve continues his proclivity for richly-drawn characters and intelligent and gripping drama while letting go of the bleakness for something much more poignant and uplifting.

Villeneuve continues his proclivity for richly-drawn characters and intelligent and gripping drama

Arrival is a film of two parts. First, there is the quiet and more intimate segments of the movie where we witness Brooks’ tender relationship with the daughter she has loved and lost. It is a tragedy which gives her the impetus to understand these mysterious beings and to promote the humanity within us all and ensure it overcomes the desire to destroy that which is deemed to be different.

On the other side it is a movie that is wider in scope and purpose, as politicians and armies across the world deal with the situation and threaten to escalate it. And yet, it is no less intimate as Louise and mathematician Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) attempt to keep out the noise in their one-on-one communication with the alien beings.

It is no spoiler to say that as the purpose of the aliens’ visit starts to become clear, the personal and professional sides of Brooks’ life coalesce.

Yet, this is done in a rather audacious and enriching way, in a twist that I certainly did not see coming.

Directing a screenplay by Eric Heisserer (based on The Story of your Life by Ted Chiang), Villeneuve adopts an unhurried pace, giving his protagonists chance to breathe and the superb story to unfold. That is not to say the film is without spectacle, far from it. The sight of the pods hovering above their chosen locals is quite something, elegant as they are despite their enormity. Inside them is a churchlike cavernousness – deep, dark and mysterious, yet strangely peaceful and not at all threatening.

Similarly unthreatening are the beings inside – the heptapods, strange creatures on seven legs, whose intricate method of communication involves drawing elaborate circular symbols with both hands. These symbols provoke in Louise strong memories of her own life as she sets about the daunting task of deciphering and translating them.

The movie is driven by Adams’ performance. This is an actor whose work has been universally acclaimed over the past few years, yet rarely have I found her so rawly authentic and moving. She wears Brooks’ sadness almost like a second skin. It is palpable and painful to watch.

Yet, when that sadness is tempered by her natural curiosity to discover, learn, reach out and communicate with the heptapods, her quiet delight is a joy to behold and the audience is with her all the way. Renner sheds his usual action hero garb to offer her support with Forest Whitaker as the army colonel who brings Louise on to the scene and Michael Stuhlbarg as CIA Agent Halpern.

Yet, it is Adams’ movie through and through and a role which may garner her a sixth Oscar nomination.