In the movie Arrival, Dr. Louise Banks, a linguistics professor with an impressive resume, is summoned to Montana to try to communicate with aliens who have arrived in a giant black spaceship made of materials unknown to man. Louise, played by Amy Adams, is unable to decipher the noises emitted by the aliens, but that doesn’t deter her from trying to uncover why they came to Earth. Have they come in peace, or are the aliens intent on destroying all life on our planet? Are the aliens just visiting, or do they plan on staying indefinitely?
Before Louise can even attempt to learn their motives, she first needs to get them to understand her. As she painstakingly presents the basics of the English language to them, they finally begin to communicate with her.
Meanwhile, eleven other identical spacecrafts have arrived all around the world, and each unwilling host nation has its own set of experts assigned to reveal the same information Louise seeks. Louise is patient and respectful of the process involved in trying to communicate with the aliens while some of the other nations are ready to raise weapons against them without determining if they are friends or foes.
The military personnel in charge of dealing with the spaceship in Montana want Louise to speed up the process, but she fears that the slightest wrong move or miscommunication could damage the progress that she and scientist Ian Donnelly, played by Jeremy Renner, have made. Colonel Weber, played by Forest Whitaker, is the one who solicited Louise and Ian’s help. He has faith in their abilities to answer the government’s questions about the aliens, but has higher ranking people demanding answers the duo of experts still don’t know, adding to the pressure Louise and Ian face.
As Louise begins to learn the aliens’ language, which is so much more complex than any language that exists on Earth, she has a series of flashbacks about her daughter Hannah, seeing Hannah through various stages of her childhood. The memories distract Louise, and viewers will find themselves wondering what, if any, significance the aliens’ presence has to do with Hannah.
Those viewers who saw The Sixth Sense may experience the same breathtaking “aha moment” of wonder while watching Arrival. It was only when the plot twist was unveiled that certain things made sense to me. Without giving away anything, let’s just say that once I knew, I had to rethink the whole movie as I tried to wrap my head around the newly understood story line.
I attended Arrival with family friend Jack, who is thirteen years old. Jack, who has a deep interest in sci-fi movies, said he’s not sure whether some of his friends would like it because parts of it felt really slow, which I agreed with for sure. “It was a little hard to follow,” he warns those interested in seeing Arrival, “but overall it was a really good movie.” Jack had anticipated that he would like Arrival, and after seeing it, he concluded that it was better than he had imagined.
As the credits began to roll at the end of the film, I overheard the couple seated behind us already talking about it. One of them said, “I’m going to have to think about this!” It was like he read my mind. I found myself still digesting the plot, and trying to determine whether I would have made the same ultimate decision Louise makes. No spoilers, but with a tear in my eye, I can confidently say that I would do the same. How could I not?
Movie times: click here
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Actors: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker
Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language
Running Time: 1 hour 56 minutes
