Hidden Depth Within A Shallow Looking Premise

Rating: 7/10 (21 October 2019)

"Annihilation" is a science-fiction psychological horror film, following the story of a group of scientists who enter "The Shimmer", a mysterious quarantined zone of mutating plants and animals caused by an alien presence.
Apparently this film was a financial disaster, which is a shame because it's actually really interesting and thought provoking! I haven't seen a film come along like this before and have such a strong sense of meaning. From what I picked up (and what I read up on the movie after seeing it) the movie is a huge allegory for cancerous diseases. Which is fascinating! I haven't heard of that concept before if it's what was intended.
First of all we have an all lead women's cast, with Natalie Portman at the front killing her performance. I appreciate that the film is following Portman's character trying to save her husband, but isn't cliche and shows a lot of layering to that complicated relationship. We get a lot of crazy and creepy imagery, which makes you as an audience member feel on edge as soon as they enter "the shimmer." One scene that sticks out to me in particular is seeing the hedges in the shapes of human physical forms, it's so unsettling. The music in this film is really solid as well, I wish it would've garnered more of a following!
So back to the cancer basis of the plot. We see mutated versions of animals and plants within this dome-like structure, various characters dealing with emotional grieving, our main character (whom is a cellular biologist by the way) eventually fighting a distorted version of herself with a cyanide bomb (self-destruction) and can be seen as a form of radiation treatment. It's all subtle but not too subtle to where it didn't click in my mind by the end. I probably missed quite a lot of the imagery as well!
The film is intelligent, though will go over the heads of many people. It's ending was solidifying but didn't give me a sense of completion. So that bothered me a little bit, but didn't take away from the plot overall. Give the film a chance if you love sci-fi, for the pure fact that the visuals are stunning in this. But if you walk away feeling psychologically drained, it's all part of the ride. I'm gonna have to pick up the Jeff VanderMeer novel that the films based on!