Arrives in time

Rating: 8/10 (24 April 2017)

The movie is based on an adaptation of a short story by Ted Chiang called the 'The Story of your life'. This sentence itself should raise curiosity as you'd wonder how the story of one's life can be related to a sci-fi movie about Aliens arriving on earth. This and recommendations from my friends drew my attention to this 2016 released film starring Amy Adams and Jeremy 'renner', yup the quotes are there for a reason.
With the opening scene of a huge french window overlooking a lake with lights being all murky, it feels like a Sunday morning on a rainy day when you woke up too early. These light effects continue throughout​ the running time, and together with the intermittent flashbacks/forwards of Louise (Amy) make you dizzy. However, don't get me wrong, the film manages to arise enough curiosity, and makes up for it's lack of grandiose, pace and action with scenes full of feel, emotion and awe.
The premise is a regular one, alien ships arrive on earth (12 of them), spread across the world and as usual, we get to stick to the one which landed in US of A. Many films have started thus, only to make it an expedition of Earth's annihilation or of some adventure of a miscreant individual alien. This one, however manages to keep it slow, allowing the humans to speculate, explore and attempt to communicate with the aliens, who strangely seem to be not in any hurry. So, humanity's less known linguists come to the fore to help decipher the answer to 'whats your purpose of visiting earth?'. And of course, scientists and military to assist them.
Ian, the scientist (played by Jeremy) acts as the side kick to Louise, who comes up with innovative ideas on communication while dealing with her inner turmoil of a dear personal loss. There are few fun moments with the CIA agent and the aliens, but generally a sobre feeling prevails. While keeping the dialogue and even the bgm minimalistic, director focuses on getting the feel of each scene just right.
Without much spoilers, i can reveal that the plot revolves around varied topics, highlighting human's basic nature of self protection, lack of unity, self doubt and paucity of trust; while applauding the ability to work together when required and resolve problems with an analytical approach. However, the focus is on that abstract variable which we define as 'time'.
The movie is a must watch for those sci-fi loving folk, who are by now tired of all the typical Hollywood blockbusters and are interested in more realistic fiction focusing as much on the story as it does on it's visuals. For others, I'd still recommend 'Independence day'.