Critical Recommendation: Arrival

First contact movies are nothing new. There's something so intriguing to us about trying to talk with mysterious alien beings, and it's a trope that has been used many times in Hollywood, probably most notably in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. As tends to happen with movies, it's usually only a matter of time until a director gets ahold of a well-established trope and attempts to do something new with it. Such is the case with Denis Villeneuve's 2016 first contact film Arrival. Now, if you asked someone else what Arrival was about, they would probably say what you would expect to hear: a first contact movie. But if you asked me, I think it's so much more than just that. Arrival is a movie about life. It's about death. It's about love. About loss. About time. And I am aware that this might sound like your typical film critic rave rhetoric, but I want to make you aware that I don't think I've ever been so profoundly moved by a film in my entire life.

Arrival follows Dr. Louise Banks, a prestigious linguist who carries an enormously tragic burden as she is assigned to a team trying to communicate with alien spacecraft that have landed in several spots across the globe. She and her colleagues race against time as they try to decipher the language of the aliens before China and several other nations across the globe declare war on the extraterrestrials. However, nothing could have possibly prepared her for what she will discover about both the language of the aliens as well as about herself.

On a purely cosmetic level, I want to commend the crew that worked on Arrival for going above and beyond to really bring this movie to life through visuals and sound. The cinematography of this movie, headed by Bradford Young, is absolutely stunning. In fact, the thing that first piqued my interest in this movie, which I had previously never heard of, was a cinematography collection dedicated to it that I found online. From Arrival's heartbreaking opening sequence, all the way all the way to its stunning and mindblowing conclusion, this movie looks nothing short of phenomenal, in large part due to Young and Co's commanding use of natural light and soft artificial light, as well as their ability to avoid getting carried away with doing too many things inside the frame, which is fine for an artistically expressive film like, say, Everything Everywhere All At Once, but tends to detract from movies that are trying to be quieter and more meditative. The minimalistic style of this film's visual element is incredibly refreshing, especially when it is paired with the sheer scale and seemingly paradoxically intimate scope of the story. As for the sound design in this film, it likewise hits very high marks, especially in terms of the sounds the alien beings, which are called heptapods, make. Combined with some absolutely incredible editing, especially when it comes to the pacing of Arrival's spectacular opening, this movie makes for one of the greatest and most immersive audio-visual experiences I've ever had with a movie.

As for the actual substance of the film, Arrival confidently delivers in spades with both its writing and its emotional beats. This movie is sad. Like really, really sad. And what makes it so sad is that it is ultimately a celebration of life, and being a celebration of life, its commitment to making death feel tragic and weighty appropriately hits like nothing short of a sledgehammer. Too often in a movie, life is treated very lightly while death feels impermanent, a double-headed convention serpent that came about in full with the rise of cinematic universes and the hesitance of studios to let their characters actually die. This is refreshingly not the case with Arrival. The sheer humanity and appreciation of human reality are on full display in this movie, with all of its happiness and all of its tragedy. And so, even while this movie may be a real heartbreaker, there's also a genuineness, a tenderness, and, dare I say it, a joy to Arrival that I've rarely, if ever, seen in any other movie. And appropriately, what really brings these characters to life is the acting in this film, which is very good, especially on the part of Amy Adams. And finally, supporting this emotional resonance is an airtight, exacting, intellectual, and wildly intelligent screenplay. Arrival is one of those rare movies that works on both an emotional level as well as an intellectual one, and hits extremely high marks with both.

Lastly, I want to spend some time discussing what really sets Arrival a notch above almost any other movie I've ever seen. The plot twist. I'm not going to go into the details of it for obvious reasons, but it's one of the best twists I've ever seen in a movie, for a variety of reasons. First off, the emotional resonance of the twist is almost unmatched, enhancing the joyous and tragic elements of this movie in unspeakable ways. Secondly, it catches you completely off-guard and sends the movie in a very different direction than you would expect. Thirdly, it has everything to do with the focus of the film, namely language and how it works. And lastly, it actually makes sense for the story Arrival is telling. This last point is probably the most important part of the twist, as it allows the story to stay grounded within the world of the film, which is more or less our world, and makes the twist feel absolutely earned. If I had to level a complaint at the movie, it would be that Arrival sometimes seems to exist only for its plot twist. But when you introduce a twist that profound, intelligent, and fundamental to the story, I honestly can't complain that much, if at all.

Arrival is that rare movie that perfectly balances smarts and heart, and it's one that I am more than happy to revisit from time to time. It is, in my opinion, one of the best movies of the 21st century and one that I had to recommend on my blog because it is just so incredibly good. Just a heads-up, go into this movie blind and don't look up spoilers because they will definitely damper your experience just a hair. You will thank me later for not asking around too much about this movie. Oh, and bring a box of tissues if you cry at the movies. You're welcome.

Arrival - 10/10

Psalm 139:15-16