Ted Chiang’s novella “Story of Your Life” is one of science fiction’s most lauded and memorable works, and Arrival (2016) adapts it beautifully for the big screen. This is a smart, thoughtful, and hopeful science fiction film that couldn’t be more timely.
Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is a brilliant linguist who answers the call when a world-shaking event occurs: twelve alien spaceships appear across the Earth, causing an international crisis. Banks is recruited by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) to join the American first-contact team entrusted with opening communications with the aliens. Along with theoretical physicist Dr. Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), Louise meets—under disorienting circumstances—the aliens, and undertakes the arduous process of trying to decipher their language, not to mention their entirely alien mindset. The work is only made more difficult by time pressure, as the various governments involved in cracking the language slowly buckle under political pressure, fear, and uncertainty. It’s up to Louise to diffuse the escalating tension, but can they make the necessary breakthroughs in time?
Arrival is an understated, thought-provoking science fiction film that creates an immersive, gripping atmosphere of scientific mystery and simmering political tension. Its thematic focus on communication, cooperation, and understanding otherness in a world that often pits us against each other is a timeless message, but it couldn’t be more relevant to the current political climate. This makes it both an important and a difficult watch, depicting as it does an environment of international, multicultural cooperation in an era that seems to want to slam the door on that kind of endeavor forever. For some, this will make the film an emotionally charged dagger to the heart. I, for one, found its worldview sad but beautiful, an image of a better, fictional world that inaccurately reflects the fractious and hateful state of affairs in our own.
But Arrival also never loses sight of its smaller, human story, which, while playing out quite subtly under the broader narrative action, is just as powerful. This angle is the true source of the film’s hope and optimism: an effectively rendered message of perseverance in the face of perilous personal circumstances. On this score, Amy Adams is the film’s best asset; she delivers a flawless central performance, perfectly nuanced to execute the film’s impressive narrative strategy, which involves a jaw-dropping emotional reveal. The message of her character’s life journey is a powerful one, and one many of us most likely need to hear right about now.
In summary, Arrival is first-rate SF, fiction that converses powerfully with the truth, delivering sense of wonder, thought-provoking concepts, romance, drama, and hope. Science fiction doesn’t get much better than this.
