Title: Arrival (2016)
Release date: Nov 11, 2016 (USA)
IMDB Rating: 8.1/10
Writers: Eric Heisserer (screenplay), Ted Chiang (based on the short story "Story of Your Life" written by)
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Stars: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Michael Stuhlbarg, Forest Whitaker
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Production Companies: 21 Laps Entertainment, FilmNation Entertainment, Lava Bear Films
Runtime: 116 mins
Review:
Denis Villeneuve's latest film may be about aliens visiting Earth but it's the people who hold his interest - he frequently puts the focus on faces and the smallest of interactions is key from the start. Not that its difficult to be smitten by Amy Adams, who since her breakthrough role in 2005's Junebug has shown a knack for bringing an easy smile and instant emotion to characters that is hard to beat. Here she plays Dr Louise Banks, a linguist - although our introduction to her is not via her job, but her humanity, as we see her with a baby girl, her daughter, quickly growing up until, too soon, she experiences loss. "I remember moments in the middle," she says.
Cutting to the present moment, we quickly learn that aliens have arrived at various points on planet Earth in gigantic egg-shaped obelisks and the good doctor is being asked by US Army Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) to join a multinational project to make contact and find out what, if anything, the visitors want. It would be easy to opt for the usual sense of thriller threat and military bombast that normally accompanies such arrivals, but Villeneuve takes a different tack, lending a sense of awe to the way that people are treating the alien craft, even if those in charge are nervous.
No comments:
Post a Comment