Good but too ambitious

Rating: 7/10 (25 November 2016)

American cinema cannot do a 'modest' first alien contact piece. Maybe it's impossible, retelling the most important event in human history, relentlessly re-conceived by the genre. Or at least awfully hard for Hollywood, stacked with technologists rather than self-conscious anthropologists.
One approach is not to take the enterprise too seriously, and spin it as parable (District 9). Another is to interpose an intermediary culture (the kids or seniors in ET, Cocoon). Yet another is to rely upon a work of genius for the intellectual parts (Contact), but keep it light on details. But 90% of the genre is just too ambitious (Interstellar).
What usually doesn't work entirely are gimmicks that attempt to invert the piece when the logic of the plot unravels somewhat ("you only think plot element X makes no sense because you've been thinking about the whole plot wrong").
Arrival indulges in these gimmicks, and another, less common one in Hollywood sci-fi, which is probably winning Arrival plaudits. It pulls away from the cerebral and drops into long, quiet, behind-the- shoulder Terrence Mallick sequences. The personal. (Cynics will say this was a calculated move to appeal to non-sci-fi or female audiences and pull for an acting Oscar).
None of this makes for a *bad* movie, unless your expectations of alien first contact are messianic. It's passably fresh, well-acted and visually understated. The direction struggles a little with pace (urgent and languid) and tone (cacophonous and dreamy). But it's enjoyable.