ARRIVAL
★★★★★
FROMFEBRUARY 20/ RATEDM/DIRECTORDenis
Villeneuve/CASTAmy Adams, Jeremy Renner,
Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma
Stop watching the skies
SOME MOVIES AREbest
watched with others just so you can
discuss them afterwards.Arrivalis
such a one, but without spoiling
anything, the most likely discussion is
not about aliens at all: it’s a much
more human “Would you make Decision X if you
knew Outcome Y?” Like the best sci-i,Arrivalisn’t
really about what it looks like: on the surface it’s
about the struggle of irst contact with aliens, but at
heart it’s about the struggle of genuine contact with
each other, and even with our own memories.
Twelve alien ships arrive on Earth, scattered
apparently at random around the globe, but it’s
not clear why they’re here. Hence the US military
brings in a top linguist Dr Louise Banks (Amy
Adams; and no, she’s not especially cunning) to
make contact with the ship in Montana. Working
with a theoretical physicist (Jeremy Renner), Dr
Banks tries to uncover common ground between
human and heptapod, under mounting pressure
from the military (in the person of Forest
Whitaker as a US colonel) and the CIA (a slimy
Michael Stuhlbarg).As 11 other nations vie for control of the
situation, tensions run high, and trigger ingers get
itchy. The rigours of translation are an elegant
metaphor: Dr Banks makes more progress in
communicating with an alien race, than most of the
humans do in communicating with each other. As
she tries to explain to her military hosts, much of
meaning is contained in nuance, which is rarely
clariied; the relationship between intention andForest Whitaker, Amy Adams
and Jeremy Renner prepare
to enter the alien ship.