Arrival

And here I thought movies like this couldn’t get made anymore.

Arrival, based on the short story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, takes us to ground zero as the world makes first contact with an alien entity. Landing themselves in twelve different locations across the world, these aliens do little more than keep their “spaceship” hovering in place, leaving it up to the various scientists across the globe like linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) to figure out the why of it all. Once inside the pebble shaped UFO, the first order of business is to develop a way to communicate with these beings. The more Louise and Ian interact with our new visitors, the clearer their reasoning for landing on Earth becomes, but with the rest of the world slowly starting to draw their own conclusions – good or bad – it’s up to Louise and Ian to salvage some form of communication before the attention towards these beings turns hostile and quite possibly, violent.

It’s not very often that films are able to genuinely surprise and intrigue audiences while simultaneously challenging them to think and invest in the story and characters at hand, but it’s even harder for a sci-fi film to pull such a feat off, especially in this day and age where sci-fi mostly means flying ships and laser blasts rather than being used as a form of social commentary or a way to get all cerebral on our asses. Luckily, Arrival channels the best of classic sci-fi like The Abyss, Contact, Close Encounters and more, bringing a more sophisticated and character based look at the genre. Arrival knows what story it’s trying to tell and how to tell it, flashy special effects and grand set pieces be damned, and while the strengths of this film are many, it wouldn’t be possible without the exact talent involved.

Director Dennis Villeneuve ups his game considerably from Sicario and Prisoners, doing a great job of expanding on the moody look of those films matched with some interesting shot choices that sell the eerie reality these people are living in. Screenwriter Eric Heisserer, not to be outdone, compliments his director’s approach by taking a relatively simple concept and adds layer upon layer to elevate the material to a level where anyone can understand what’s going on, but never dumbed down to a point where there’s too much handholding. Couple that with the strong performances from everyone involved and it’s clear to see that the subject material couldn’t have been pulled off by anyone else in the way it was done here.

That being said, what I’d really like to focus on is the way the film plays from beginning to end. The real reason that this film works is not due to any one scene, line of dialogue or plot point, it’s all about the sum of its parts and how skillfully the entire experience comes together. I can’t say that there’s any one point that stood out more than the others, but I can tell you how I felt at the end of it all, and that word would have to be satisfied, a word I barely use when it comes to films nowadays. Like a magic trick or a punch line waiting to hit, the entire film is structured in a way that slow burns pretty much from the start, ramping up minute by minute in order to build tension and intrigue leading to a fever pitch where we finally get a release in the form of a new wrinkle in the story, a new turn in the plot or an interesting reveal regarding the alien visitors. Then it’s back down to that slow burn and build-up technique, this time with a different outcome and a different journey that feels right at home with what came before and what inevitably comes after. It’s this slow and plodding manner that might turn off a few based on the amount of time it takes to get to these “release” scenes, but because you’re so ingrained in the story and the what and why of it all, it’s easy to forgive, especially when the film culminates in a great emotional payoff that fits the story being told like a glove. The filmmakers make this process look effortless and by the time everything wraps up and you’re left to ponder what it all means like any good sci-fi film is supposed to do.

Arrival is something that I’ve been waiting to see for a while and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s clever, inventive, looks great, and has more going for it than all the usual bells and whistles a typical blockbuster movie throws onscreen combined. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, director Dennis Villeneuve deserves an Oscar, and if the trajectory of screenwriter Eric Heisserer keeps heading in this direction, he won’t be far behind. If you enjoy sci-fi films or simply smart and thought provoking films in general, then this is a must see sci-fi gem that most definitely will hit “classic” status a few years down the line. There’s barely anything here holding this film back from being great, and while it is quite slow at times, it’s all worth it when looking at the film as a whole. Here’s to another collaboration between these two filmmakers in the near future, or at least more projects like this filling up their resumes.