Arrival

            In Dennis Villeneuve’s Arrival, a dozen spaceships land at seemingly random spots across the world—triggering a crisis of international proportions. As world governments—each with their own fears and motivations—scramble to make contact with the aliens, a shadowy military officer (Forest Whitaker) recruits Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), a linguist and a theoretical physicist, to figure out why the aliens are here and what they want. Villenueve crafts a remarkably grounded and intellectual film that explores the power of language in shaping identity and how we understand the world around us. Within these events he also offers a heartbreaking story of familial loss.

            The film embraces an intimate and procedural approach to first contact. As Banks and Donnelly (Adams and Renner) approach the alien spacecraft, Villenueve embeds the viewer in the minutiae of donning radiation suits, driving out to the site, and slowly ascending a gigantic scissor lift to reach the alien spacecraft. After dealing with some shifting gravity, the two approach the seven legged aliens—known as heptapods—who are mostly shrouded in a white fog. After their visit, Banks’ hands shake and Donnelly throws up, revealing the stress that would underline such a monumental undertaking. Donnelly names the two aliens—Abbot and Costello, seemingly a reference to the famous “Who’s on first?” sketch and highlighting the difficulties inherent in any form of communication, let alone one where neither come from the same species. The film follows Banks and Donnelly’s grueling work of decoding the alien language, which the aliens create by shooting black ink out of their tentacles. The language, circular and gaseous and without easily discernible characters, occupies much of the pair’s work.

When the film expands its focus, some weaknesses begin to appear. Backed by largely unnamed teams, Banks and Donnelly work while the world outside deteriorates rapidly.  There’s looting, panic, military escalation, a hysterical media, and growing impatience when the aliens seem to be offering mankind weapons for some unclear purpose. There’s a distrustful CIA agent floating around, seemingly there to remind them of the need for answers while barely acknowledging the Herculean task at hand. There’s an easily manipulated army officer who after a phone call with his panicked wife and a pep talk from a Trump-ish radio host decides to send the heptapods a message about the strength and power of humanity in the way that only the profoundly stupid can—with a bomb. This clumsily introduced plot line vanishes almost as quickly as it appeared. Then there’s the menacing Chinese general, set to blow everything up at seemingly every available opportunity. These peripheral stories, however, remain largely in the background to the nitty-gritty of communication with the heptapods.

            Yet Villenueve has done something incredibly clever with this high-sci-fi premise, he’s placed inside of it an emotionally affecting familial story.  Adams, a generally talented actress, plays Banks as a buttoned up professional trying to keep her work separated from a heartbreaking loss. Villenueve shines as he plays with the audience’s assumptions about this loss and cleverly parallels her personal experience with the efforts to communicate with the heptapods. As a result, Arrival is a movie with both a brain and a heart.