Universal language

‘Arrival’ is a haunting meditation on the nature of communication

I have something embarrassing to admit. Despite the acclaim heaped upon the films of Denis Villeneuve by critics and friends alike, I haven’t seen anything from the Canadian writer and director since 2010’s “Incendies” (a moving and emotional, if vaguely remembered, experience). His subsequent trifecta of praised features—“Prisoners,” “Enemy,” and “Sicario”—somehow still remain on my to-do list.

Which is another way of saying that I don’t have any basis of comparison for his latest, “Arrival”—not just to his past work (though Villeneuve’s never gone full sci-fi) but even within the science fiction genre. Aside from Robert Zemeckis’s “Contact,” to which this film might be considered a very distant cousin, I haven’t seen anything quite like it before.

Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams), a renowned linguist at a prestigious university, is approached by Col. Weber (Forest Whitaker) after the arrival of twelve apparently extraterrestrial ships that levitate ominously above locations across the globe. The 1500 foot-tall elliptical objects, dubbed “shells,” pretty much have everyone freaked out.

Weber enlists Banks and another scientist, Dr. Ian Donnelly (Jeremey Renner), to come to the Montana site, where the military is taking the cautious approach by sharing all their information with the international community and attempting to establish a dialogue with the visitors—in lieu of just trying to blow them out of the sky. However, the longer the mystery of alien presence persists, the itchier their trigger fingers get.

Banks and Donnelly make significant breakthroughs in communicating with the aliens. But their unknown motives and the myriad threats they could pose to humanity fuel a paranoia in which cooler heads seem unlikely to prevail.

As a commentary on human nature, “Arrival” alludes to the Babel-like divisions of humanity and how miscommunication can have disastrous results—be it with interstellar beings or just amongst our own reactionary, flawed selves. Hey, we’ve all been there.

As it goes on, the movie gets mind-bending. The alien language, which is tied to their non-linear sense of time, and how Banks and Donnelly bridge that gulf of understanding, are fascinating concepts at the heart of the film, which unveils its secrets slowly, peeling away onion layers to inform the story with ever deeper levels of meaning. Suffice to say the less you know going in, the better. For what it’s worth, I haven’t revealed much that you couldn’t get out of the trailer.

Adams is the emotional soul of the film. Renner delivers as well, though I never really buy him as a nice guy. Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbarg (“Blue Jasmine”) bring their typical gravitas to the roles.

Framed by the gorgeous, pleasingly chilly compositions of cinematographer Bradford Young (“Selma”), the confidence and ease of Villeneuve’s deliberate direction make for something of a slow burn film in the best of ways. The tension builds, aided by the creepy sound design and atonal score from Jóhann Jóhannsson. It’s the kind of story that keeps your gears spinning, never quite sure of which direction it’s headed next—anxious not only to discover the breadth of the mystery, but also the fate of the characters caught within it.

Underneath them all is another story that mirrors Louise and Ian’s gradual cognizance of the visitor’s language and true intentions. Where those two thematic and narrative arcs meet—the frailty of love and its correlation with the awe of first contact—are the essence of why “Arrival” is so haunting. 

For more from Joe, read his review of “Doctor Strange.”