My 2nd Favorite Movie of All Time

When a movie starts with composer Max Richter’s solemn yet beautiful “On the Nature of Daylight” you should just assume you’re going to be in for an emotionally wild ride.

This movie I speak of is Arrival, a 2016 sci-fi film directed by Denis Villeneuve, and my 2nd favorite movie of all time (after La La Land, of course). This movie skillfully forces you to think deeply about humanity from start to end and raises many questions in regard to communication, grief, and the linearity of time.

The point I made earlier is only further supported by the opening scenes and lines of the film. Louise Banks, Arrival‘s protagonist, narrates alongside the moody image below saying, “Memory is a strange thing. It doesn’t work like I thought it did. We are so bound by time, by its order.”

Villeneuve then takes us into a series of moments that display the birth, life, and devastating death of the narrator’s daughter Hannah. The cinematography, soundtrack, and dialogue in these opening scenes work together harmoniously to set the tone for the remainder of the movie.

Still, this is a movie advertised to be about aliens, so why does the director begin in this way? Well, before we dive into questions like these, allow me to provide a little more insight into the movie’s plot. One day Louise heads to her job as a linguistics professor, only to learn that 12 unidentified flying objects have touched down across the world, launching people everywhere into sheer panic.

The crux of the story follows Louise as the U.S. government enlists her to use her skills to determine why these extraterrestrials have come. As she collaborates with theoretical physicist, Jeremy Renner, she slowly unlocks the mysterious written language of the Heptapods, all while the other countries race to understand these beings the same.

Watching this plot unfold is an amazing thing, I feel this quote explains it the best: “Arrival is serious and smartly crafted, shifting around like a Rubik’s cube in the hand of a savant, nothing quite making sense until all the pieces suddenly come together.”

Now, time to answer my earlier question concerning Denis Villeneuve’s interesting choice for an opening scene. The truth is, Villeneuve has revealed in many interviews that the heart of this film is not these puzzling aliens, but the woman that is Louise Banks. As the viewer regards Banks’ efforts to communicate with the Heptapods, they will simultaneously watch her reinterpret the meaning of time, especially in relation to death. They see Louise’s unease as she tries to understand the Heptapod’s intents through communication, before the world anxiously acts against what they do not know.

Eventually, Louise fully unlocks the nonlinear writings of these aliens, gaining an entirely altered perspective of the past, present, and future as a result. With this, Denis forces his audience to consider the possibility that our perspective of time may be limited, that it may be incorrect to only view the present as reality, “when it is merely one of an infinite number of moments in time.”

After the film culminates, the audience is left in awe of Louise Banks’ ability to act even in knowing the tragedy that is to befall her in the future. Her capacity to make the most of the circumstances she is presented with serve as a great inspiration to the audience once the credits begin to roll.

All in all, this movie insightfully captures a glimpse into the finiteness of humanity, while leading its viewers to deeply consider how they view time, communication, and grief all the same.