thnrps

***“If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?”*** one of my favorite things about the movie is the idea of “choice.” the film suggests that there are hundreds of different paths our lives could take. louise knows that the daughter she chooses to have will eventually get sick and die, and even with all those possible futures in front of her, she still says yes. she chooses the future where she gets to spend time with the person who will mean the most to her, no matter how short that time might be. even the aliens make a similar choice. despite having other possibilities, they still accept death because they believe it’s worth it. if we could see our entire lives from beginning to end, maybe it wouldn’t matter whether that life was long or short. louise says early in the movie, *“i don’t see time that way anymore.”* maybe that’s the whole point. loving people, accepting what comes, and appreciating the time we have with them until the very end might be enough. for someone like ian, though, who experiences life one moment at a time and can’t see the future, that choice is impossible to understand. i always thought that’s why they ended up separating. louise tells him what will happen to their daughter, and while he believes her, he can’t understand why she still chose to have their child knowing exactly how things would turn out. the movie makes us think that the images in the main character’s mind are memories from the past, which keeps us guessing about how any of this is supposed to connect to aliens. but when it’s revealed that those moments haven’t even happened yet, it genuinely blew my mind. and somehow, despite that twist, the movie never feels confusing. it’s just so, so good.