Is it as deep as it appears to be?

Rating: 7/10 (16 May 2018)

After a brief but devastating flashback prologue, spaceships arrive in stationary positions at a dozen locations across the world, and language specialist Louise is recruited by the military to try to communicate with the aliens within. Verbal communication turns out to be impossible, and Louise concentrates on visual communication: the aliens use symbols which look like the stains coffee cups leave. Meanwhile, some of the countries hosting the other ships are getting jittery about their guests...
Arrival is, I think, going to be the new Matrix. Like The Matrix, I fancy Arrival is going to have a lot of people thinking that it is a masterpiece of cerebral science fiction and, like The Matrix, I think it will turn out to contain a good deal less than meets the eye.
Don't let me talk it down too much, though, because it certainly contains some food for thought. The best notion for further examination is that the language you learn in infancy influences the way your thought processes develop, notwithstanding that this was a key concept in Robert Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land back in 1961.
I felt that this idea (which drives the concept of the perception of time which, in turn, enables the resolution) was never coherently developed, though, and needed to be spelled out a little more clearly, especially as regards how it tied in with the prologue.
The international paranoia and local xenophobia angles are far more straightforward, albeit straight out of The Day The Earth Stood Still.
The cast are all very good in a film which takes its time to tell a story which, ultimately, is fairly simple. Amy Adams holds centre stage effectively, and Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker provide excellent support. And the visuals are interesting: not especially flashy, but always in service to the story. Denis Villneuve's direction is excellent - I liked this a great deal more than Sicario - and is one of the reasons why people are going to think there is more to this film than there is.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that this film is an example of The Emperor's New Clothes, but it may well be a case of The Emperor's New Underpants. It's definitely worth seeing, though.