Arrival

The entire premise of Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, inspired by Ted Chiang’s novella Story of Your Life is centered around the life of a woman played by Amy Adams, some seven-limbed aliens and her daughter, as well as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis taken a little too literally to form the basis for its sci-fi element. And I (unsurprisingly) loved it? The language that the heptapods speak is cyclical, infinite, non-linear. Perhaps a visual representation of time itself. “Is this how they think?” Dr. Louise Banks, a linguist who is first to truly master the language initially referred to as a “weapon” instead of a “tool” begins to see a significant paradigm shift in her perspective towards her place in time. This new way of thinking proves to come with much heavier baggage that costs Banks her relationship to Donelly (Jeremy Renner), language being both the saviour of humanity, and communication being the driving force of the suffering and conflict that plagues Banks’ life and brings ruin to Donelly’s. Unfortunately, in Chiang’s original novella, determinism and the non-existence of free will prevents Banks from changing the tragic events that ominously loom over her future. The film however is far less nihilistic and instead implies Banks had a chance to change things, but didn’t. Banks’ embraces this decision because now, armed with a new way of looking at things, the concept of anything outside of the present is meaningless to Banks, eternally experiencing the highs and the lows, the pleasure and pain of those she loves leaving her, simultaneously. All because of the inability to communicate this gift and curse bestowed upon her. What makes Arrival and by extension, its’ characters so compelling is in that, being a hard sci-fi movie introducing a variety of concepts such as precognition and language, as well as the arrival of the aliens being analogous with the birth of a child (evoking the clever polysemy of the title), is it’s unique decision to allow Banks’ to actively choose the future that ends tragically. This is a rarity in the science fiction genre as well as the time travel genre, as the protagonist is often restricted by being physically unable to change the future due to fate or perhaps even worse repercussions from the endless number of alternative possibilities. This is where Arrival differs from its literary counterpart where it, too, offers the finality of deterministic fatalism to its narrator. This is evident when Chiang writes “knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will” rendering it impossible for the protagonist “to exercise freedom of choice”. Instead of the multitude of choices or the lack thereof on the protagonist’s plate, the cinematic adaptation of Banks actively decides to keep things the way they are, valuing the arrival more than the departure, and that is refreshing. For a screenwriter who spends the majority of the runtime glossing over the technicalities of the attempts at understanding logograms and providing dull Jeremy Renner exposition dumps, he does make some very intelligent changes to the novella with Villeneuve here. However, this does not excuse the downright cheesy dialogue and clichéd construction of the tragic end to Banks’ familial relationships. It’s a shame this trend continues, with Eric Heisserer seemingly having no interest in writing for films other than bad horror movie sequels and Netflix thrillers. Part of me wonders how much better Arrival could have been with the help of another, more capable screenwriter. Ignoring the shoddier aspects of the writing, Heisserer and Villeneuve make another genius decision to translate Story Of Your Life for the screen. Having the heptapods physically arrive on Earth to physically share their weapon of non-linear orthography, allowing for an “inherent tension” to be created. A sudden, “immediate threat” to quote Heisserer. Similarly, the decision to gradually reveal Banks’ ability to perceive time non-chronologically allows for far more fulfilling climax for the audience than introducing it to us from the get go as Chiang does in the novella. Ultimately, this adaptation does do a great job at integrating these ideas of how you could weaponise time and how time and linguistics are intertwined. “The cornerstone of civilization isn’t language, it’s science” The implications of the visit by Abbott and Costello, two of many heptapods on earth, are left unanswered, save for one succinct, crucial line of dialogue stated by Costello. The gift of their language (and in earlier versions of the script, literal building blocks to alien technology) was for a trade that they intended to hold 3000 years in the future, when the heptapods will request for humanity’s help. The subtext here is that these aliens are seemingly fearing annihilation by some sort of restriction theorised by the Fermi paradox, in which space-faring, intelligent civilisations that travel throughout the cosmos fall to a likely inevitable end to their travels. Anyway, Arrival very intentionally chooses not to focalise on this aspect of its story, and rightly so, as instead it uses the aliens as a parallel to how the one thing that brought the characters of Banks and Donnelly together is the very thing that destructs their relationship as well. This is evidenced in the loss of Abbott, and in one of the last frames of the film where Banks’ taps on the glass wall of the house to call for an out-of-focus silhouette of Donnelly, not unlike our protagonists’ initial interactions with the heptapods. “Abbott is death process” This little easter egg could have been expanded upon way more for a film which had taglines hinting at the reasons for their arrival being revealed, however such a revelation would have likely tarnished whatever good we already have, while also disrupting the near-perfect pacing maintained throughout the film, despite the rushed climax where Amy Adams mutters “Wars don’t make heroes, just widows and orphans” in broken Mandarin to reason with the violently aggressive General Shang. This is problematic because Banks’ receives this information in an all too convenient fashion, with no distractions, the future memory is just there. Which just seems too easy of a solution. Jeremy Renner has a similarly unsatisfactory performance, as uncharismatic and uninvolved as he is written. His character could definitely have been better integrated into the plot of the film by using him as a focal point to question our protagonists sanity and reliability when seeing from her perspective. Overall, his presence just seemed like squandered potential. “There are no winners in war, only widows” These are merely minor qualms I have with an utterly entrancing film I love, with ethereal cinematography by Bradford Young, wonderful editing by frequent Villeneuve collaborator Joe Walker (match cuts and jump cuts galore), inventive VFX by Louis Morin and a beautiful score by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson. The integration of Max Richter’s The Nature of Daylight is just as utterly heart shattering as it was when it appeared in Scorsese’s Shutter Island. The theme acts as a great backdrop to the progression of Banks’ feelings and also really works well with the precise and intentional shot composition where the sky is eternally in the early hours of dusk and dawn, ultimately encapsulating the linguist’s ever-changing perception of time leaves her in a melancholic limbo between three realities. Arrival works as an excellent adaptation of its equally entrancing novella, an examination of both communication and cognition. Whatever misgivings I may have with it are lessened due to how rewarding and ambitious it turns out to be. For all of Arrival's flaws, the sheer spectacle Villeneuve effortlessly displays on screen may leave us with missed opportunities but not with any glaring disappointments. It's just so utterly satisfying to sit down and watch a great big movie, sometimes, and for that movie to be excellent. If anything, the unrelenting symbolism and downright hypnotic audio-visual synchrony only leaves me terrified of trying my hand at filmmaking myself. “I’ve had my head tilted up to the stars for as long as I can remember. You know what surprised me the most? It wasn’t meeting them. It was meeting you.”