Memory is a funny thing. I remember watching this movie back when it first released (this was my literal second look). I remember liking it a lot, I remember liking the science fiction, and I remember many of the specific key scenes for this movie. But one thing I did not remember was the opening montage, which is odd since it is so important to both the plot and themes of the movie, and possibly what I liked best about this viewing. I remember this being a smart, well thought out sci-fi movie that plays as a really slow burn until it gets to the end and has some really great pay-offs because of it.
This Viewing – This viewing right off the bat the opening montage hit me really hard, because about halfway through I remembered what happens, and I remembered how Louise (Amy Adams) reacts to what happens with her daughter. The story starts out with this montage and then rewinds to the start of the story moving forward with little flash forwards in parts where the story calls for it. The premise is alien spacecraft come to earth and in order to communicate better with them the government hires a linguist to help decipher their language. The aliens (dubbed Heptapods due to having 7 legs) need humanities help in the future and want to ensure we survive as a species in order to provide it when the time is right. Eventually as Louise learns their language she perceives time differently as a result and can ‘remember’ the future. This is very clever storytelling once we (the audience) realize what has been happening, I loved this concept first time around and I still really enjoyed it on this viewing. The scenes where they learn to communicate with each other are very well done and help keep the movies atmosphere and tension moving along at an appropriate pace. It allows the wonder and discovery of an alien species to be something that should fill you with awe and also highlights the difficulties of initial communication with someone completely different. Arrival is great at keeping it’s tone, and pacing consistent for the majority of the movie, it is forced to speed things up a little too much towards the end, but this was to add a fair amount of tension to the climactic ending. All in all it was another enjoyable watching experience this time around and in the end I did really enjoy this rewatch partially due to noticing clues that I would not have picked up the first time and just enjoying the story unfold.
Themes – Ok, not so much themes, but what I took out of this viewing. Right off the top working together for the greater good is not just a theme here, but rather the point of the story. We need good communication in order to facilitate this is also fairly present as well, in addition to putting aside our differences for the greater good. Arrival also places a great deal into how communication shapes our world view (called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis which I just did a good deal of reading on to help me try to get it right). You can see how this plays out in the movie as when the soldiers hear the aliens are there to “use weapon” a few of them immediately go on the offensive and plant a bomb on the ship that inevitably goes off and kills one of the Heptapods. I would make the argument that the soldiers reacted this way not due to their native language structure, but more so their personal experiences, as we see academics like Louise and Ian (Jeremy Renner) have no such inkling upon hearing the loose translation. Saving the biggest thoughts for last is a discussion both myself and Mrs. Fistcrush had both times after watching this: Was it worth it? Specifically, Louise learns throughout the course of the movie that she will have a daughter (Hannah, bonus points for the palindrome name due to the subject matter) and that daughter will die early due to an illness/disease. The movie frames that she makes the choice to have her daughter knowing how it will turn out in the end, the love outweighing the sorrow. We have both decided on both watches that we would also make this choice (we have two children together for full disclosure). This would be a tough call for anyone to make and I would never begrudge another’s decisions on this matter.
Quibbles/afterthoughts – The one major problem I had with this movie (more than a quibble). Is that even though it tries to frame Louise having made a choice to have Hannah knowing how it would turn out, but the nature of experiencing time in a non-linear fashion would mean that there is not really a choice. If she does not have Hannah she does not remember the things that have not happened yet to guide her to the end point with the Heptapods. Similarly the Heptapods also seem to have no choice. The know about the bomb and one of them dies instead of doing something more effective about it. This also leads to some discussion about Louise and Ian’s relationship. If she knew about how upset he would be finding out about their daughter and what would happen shouldn’t she at least warn him so he can make a similarly informed decision? Let him make some informed choice about his life in the same way she gets to? This seems a pretty callous way to treat a loved one. My quibble is: If the Heptapods can experience time in a non-linear fashion could they not have some advance knowledge about communicating with humans and speed that process along? Like I am a native English speaker but if I went to an area with a different language and alphabet with advance knowledge about both of those things I would use that knowledge to speed up our communication. But at the end of the day it is a minor quibble as the movie is better as presented, also the Heptapod language is super cool looking and adds a really great sci-fi concept and imagery to the movie.
Final Thoughts – Coming back to was it worth it. Yes, it was. I did enjoy this watch second time around, and even after having a few major problems this time around it is still a really good watch. I love having a range of genres and sub-genres to choose from for my movies and I am not sure you can ever have enough slow contemplative sci-fi. Also this movie had a distinctive look and alien design (also of note, they had a really cool if oddly convenient ship), which is also something I can get behind. For the most part I line up with it thematically and anything I don’t agree with I feel was either necessary to put in for the movie to work or unintentional on the part of the film-makers. At the end of the day, yes this was worth it.