Skip to main content

Arrival: Film 3.5/5

Christopher Orr, the Atlantic


Like Villeneuve’s recent films Sicario and Prisoners, the movie is at once evocative and mysterious. As events unspool, we can sense that—like Louise with the heptapods—we do not entirely comprehend them. (We are correct in this.) As she and Ian try to decode the creatures’ language, they are constrained in their efforts by Colonel Weber and, especially, a CIA agent named Halpern (Michael Stuhlbarg). Until we know more of the aliens’ intentions—conquest? tourism? cup of sugar?—Weber and Halpern are greatly concerned that we do not accidentally teach them more about ourselves than we learn about them.


Moreover, there are geopolitics to consider. Eleven other craft hover elsewhere on Earth: Shanghai, Siberia, Sudan, Sierre Leone, and even a few places not starting with “s.” What if China or Russia makes a breakthrough with the aliens first and uses what it learns against the United States? What if shots are fired, bringing alien wrath down upon the whole globe? Already their arrival has enveloped America in a sense of dread and anxiety not seen since—well, this entire political season. Looting breaks out in the cities; Pentecostals self-immolate; talk-radio tough guys demand “a show of force, a shot across their bows.”
The look of Arrival is stately and elegant; its pace, sober and deliberate. This is Villeneuve’s first collaboration with the cinematographer Bradford Young, who shot my two favorite films of 2014 in A Most Violent Year and Selma. The score, by the frequent Villeneuve contributor Jóhann Jóhannsson, is multifaceted and occasionally spellbinding, not least when its low horns boom with menace, almost like an alien voice themselves.

************

I'd have shortened this film about 15 minutes. Also, the time travel aspect was a little too clever.  But all in all pretty good movie, though not in the category of Sicario.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin . . . finished

 Follows Sadie and Sam (Mazer) from childhood to mid-thirties when both are feeling old and a bit out of it in the gaming world.  Characters are well-rounded, develop throughout the novel in interesting way.  Plot is involved but sensible.  Not a single, "Oh, come on!" moment.  The book could have been faster paced. Odd, since the main topic is video games which are not for their speed of engagement and Gabrielle Zevin clearly knows her video games. Recommended by Michael Connelly in an interview.  He also has Bosch pick up the book in his novel, Resurrection Walk, as Bosch tails a possible witness to a crime as she moves through a bookstore. Sadie and Sam do not get together at the end, which is good.   Marx killed by homophobic nutcase who really wants to kill Sam, but Sam isn't there. Marx is father of Sadie's child. 

The Franchise Affair, Josephine Tey--opening pages

Blair, a lawyer in Milford, gets a strange call.  His practice is wills and similar--nothing criminal.  A woman tells him that Scotland Yard is accusing her of abduction and implores him to come out to help her, even if later on he passes the case to someone else.  The woman says she has called him because he is "her type," meaning respectable and conservative.  He agrees.