Over the weekend, I saw the Denis Villeneuve movie Arrival. From the trailer I knew that it was an alien invasion movie (an overdone genre that can quickly go wrong), but I had no idea the depth and importance that the movie would hold.
The film is centered around Dr. Louise Banks, an esteemed linguistics professor with government work on her resume. When alien aircraft (nicknamed "shells" because of their egg-like shape) and begins emitting transmissions that the government thinks could possess alien language, Dr. Banks is contacted by military agents that are familiar with her linguistic work. They want her to translate the alien transmission, figure out what they want, what their purpose is, and whether or not they could be hostile. However, as all character of the movie soon learn, translation is so much more difficult than asking questions more loudly when others can't understand you.
So, over the course of the movie, Dr. Banks, along with several military personnel and a theoretical physicist, work together to try to figure out why the aliens (named Heptapods) are on Earth. They are able to meet one-on-one with two Heptapods, whom they name Abbot and Costello, and teach each other their languages. The Heptapods propose no hostility, and actually give their lives to save the lives of Louise and the physicist, Ian, in a dangerous situation created by rogue military officials.
While I also thought that the plot of this movie was incredible, so was the message. Although I have left out some portions of the plot that contribute to the meaning, I can tell you this: Arrival was made to tell us to work together and accept the other. When Louise and Ian are working with the aliens, they are working with beings that they have never seen before. Their vocal language is unfamiliar, their written language does not possess English characters, and they are overwhelming to be in the presence of. But they are not a threat. The Heptapods are on Earth to teach humans to work together, to overcome differences.
All I can say is that I wish this movie would have come out before the election.
Rating: A
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