Spoiler Warning: This discussion has very few spoilers: some set up from the first act, a general idea of the narrative at hand.
"There are days that define your story beyond your life."
I have sat down to begin writing about Arrival twice now, and both times have struggled to start. I still don’t truly know where to begin. All I do know is that Denis Villeneuve is quickly becoming one of my favourite filmmakers working today, and Arrival is every bit as good as I had heard.
There isn’t a single complaint that I have. Amy Adams puts in the best performance of her career. Every moment feels earned and genuine when she is on screen. Renner and Whitaker opposite her do have much less to do, despite seemingly similar amounts of screentime. It’s a testament to Adams that she stands out as much as she does throughout the film. The score is absolutely gorgeous, Jóhannsson punctuating the body of the text whilst being bookended by Max Richter’s scintillating On the Nature of Daylight which left me in a mode of contemplation long after the credits finished rolling.
The cinematography is absolutely stunning. It’s hardly flashy, with a muted colour palette and a vast open plain of land as its primary setting. However, the style is constantly turned up to ten, with these magnificent shots in which landscapes and characters are bisected within them. The only colour that ever seems saturated is during the flashback sequences. The editing becomes far more involved in the narrative as it goes along, as clues begin to add up, and it suddenly becomes the most effective storytelling tool that Villeneuve has in his arsenal. His presence is felt, always; he has never failed to succeed. His scope and incredible vision keep this film moving, always in control of pacing and emotion. It’s perhaps his best effort behind the camera I have seen.
The narrative is quite simply stunning. It is also almost impossible to describe without a full rundown of the film’s events. All I need to say is that the final act of this film improves every moment that preceded it. I’ll watch this again someday, and I already know that it’ll blow me away again. Another tremendous compliment I can give this film is that, despite its intimidating premise, there’s no confusion by the end. It nails the suspense; it nailed the emotional beats; it nailed the slick science fiction pieces, all the while keeping things grounded. The startling imagery of those palindromic circles and the quest to decode them is some of the best mystery-solving I’ve seen in cinema for a long time.
Arrival did not disappoint. It’s a film I have been desperate to see for years, one that I wish I could have caught on the big screen, but alas. It is perfectly complex yet brilliantly simple in its final form. It understands what science fiction is capable of but isn’t constrained by the genre. Every element is on point, down to the eerie spacecraft and weirdly sophisticated yet menacing design of the heptapods. This one is special.
Connor Clarke Film 