by Jon Partridge
Fantastic Fest
Fantastic Fest is the largest genre film festival in the U.S., specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action and just plain fantastic movies from all around the world. They feature world, national and regional premieres of new, up-and-coming genre films. It is held each year at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas. For more info, visit fantasticfest.com
Arrival does what all good scifi does, takes a heady concept and uses it to look at ourselves. Notions of human nature, communication and understanding examined as we’re forced to deal with ideas that are bigger than ourselves. Immediate comparisons will be made with Nolan’s Interstellar or Zemeckis’s Contact, but Denis Villeneuve’s latest (Enemy, Sicario) avoids many of the flaws those films, blending style, smarts and most importantly, a resonant emotional component.
Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is a linguistics Professor weighed down by the loss of her daughter. After the arrival of twelve massive alien vessels that take up positions at seemingly random spots around the globe, Banks is recruited to join a team attempting to establish a line of communication with the aliens. Once at the ship site in Montana, she’s paired with mathematician Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) offering two ways to try and open up a dialogue, pure language or science. As they spend time with the aliens, she finds memories of her loss resurfacing, something she struggles to handle, as they try to figure out why these visitors are here.
While the story sounds complex, the truth is that Arrival is pretty straighforward, it’s just methodical. It’s a dense film. These characters are immersed in linguistics and mathematics, working out a means of communication. It’s brains over brawn for a (refreshing) change, smart ideas that are not easily digestible and not often found in a studio feature such as this. The efforts of science is typically based on incremental knowledge and understanding, a slow process that jars with the immediate perceived threat leading to friction between the research team and the military. Arrival champions the ideas of science and progress which are founded on patience, insight, analysis, and most pertinently here, cooperation.
The contact scenes are among the most fascinating the film has to offer, as they should be. Scenes where two scientists communicate on a white board with tentacled aliens whose own language seems to be based on coffee mug ring stains has no right to be as engaging as this. The conversations between Banks and the military/government representatives are equally whip smart. But while cerebral, the emotional undercurrent and sense of the scale of this event is never lost. The wide scope of the film examines our place in the Universe is met with a counterpoint of personal grief. Arrival keeps the momentum going by having the 11 other nations dealing with their own ships, each having their own attempts at communication lead to problems, misunderstanding and distrust. A possible military solution to the incursion led by China raises the stakes further but you never lose the sense that something more is at stake.
Adams excels, tinged with grief but not lost in it, a weary soul but she shows the fear and sense of wonder at the developments beautifully. She’s the emotional anchor for this far fetched fare and it’s a testament to her work that she is the component that sticks with you after the credits roll. Renner wears his role with a natural ease that marks it as one of his more understated and best performances. For Villeneuve, he continues his impressive streak. Arrival is impeccably crafted. A sleek, cool affair that is filled with a brooding, tense tone. Banks’ memories have a hazier quality, more intimate shots imbued with a warmth, their interspersion help break up what could become monotonous. He wisely avoids overuse of CGI which keeps things grounded, although a few shots in the final act show some of the tech/budget limitations. I’m against the idea of a Blade Runner 2, but his work here, weaving a emotional component into a cerebral scifi tale has made me far more open to his tackling that project. Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score is crucial to ratcheting up the tensions while cinematographer Bradford Young does sterling work. There is a cohesion here, all three working together to make a film that feels so harmonious to bring Eric Heisserer’s screenplay to the screen and secure its legacy as not only a great piece of science fiction storytelling, but filmmaking in general.
Arrival is a smart movie but one given a soul. It’s about communication and understanding. Not just between ourselves and visitors from another planet, but with another foreign power right here on Earth, or even with a individual at our side. Smart, considered, and with a surprisingly affecting emotional component. Amy Adams delivers an incredible performance to imbue the film with grief that is counterbalanced by a sense of hope, making for a quietly devastating masterpiece.