A stellar story of alien visitation, language barriers, scientists and human grief

Rating: 10/10 (3 February 2017)

Based on Ted Chiand's brilliant science fiction short story 'The Story of Your Life' and directed by Denis Villeneuve, it is no wonder this movie turned out to be good. Villeneuve is a master of puzzles and ambiguity, as his previous movie 'Enemy' demonstrated, and he is no stranger to intense atmosphere either, as seen in 'Sicario'. 'Arrival' has a bit of both, and it also brings warm humanity into the mix. Paradoxical as it is in a movie about alien visitation, 'Arrival' is a story about human emotions at its heart. It is a story of love and grief and letting go and I'm not ashamed to say that it brought me to tears.
The movie is largely carried by three things: Amy Adams' moving acting performance, the central mystery of the story that slowly unravels, and the otherworldly atmosphere that comes from the unnatural design of the monolithic spaceships and the disturbing yet beautiful musical score. Quite like 'Contact' - another one of my favorite science fiction movies - the movie is not an action adventure but focuses on actual science, hypothetical as it may be, and like in 'Contact', the science makes way for the emotional content and the protagonist's character arc.
The short story 'The Story of Your Life' is mainly focused on the alien language and the science of linguistics. The movie follows suit, though it adds some things to spice it up a bit. But the linguistics are central to the story, and they are fascinating. The aliens have a writing system that does not correspond to the sounds they make but is an entirely self-contained language. They use a single symbol to represent several words and even several phrases, piling layers of meaning onto the symbol until it is nearly impossible for humans to distinguish all that the symbol contains. This is so delightfully alien and yet so frighteningly plausible that the thought makes me squirm.
By the way: the film's title refers to more than just the arrival of the aliens.