A heartfelt and near flawless sci-fi, that is sure to become a modern classic.

Rating: 8/10 (17 November 2016)

Directed by Denis Villeneuve, and adapted from Ted Chiang's The Story of Your Life [1998], Arrival explores how mankind would react to, and communicate with, extraterrestrial beings, who without warning and with an unclear purpose, touch down in twelve locations across the earth.
Threatened by their arrival a team of specialists, led by linguist Dr Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and scientist Ian Donnelley (Jeremy Renner), are tasked with communicating with the aliens, and ultimately deducing whether they have peaceful or hostile intentions.
Perhaps surprisingly Arrival is not just a film about an encounter with extraterrestrials, but is at its core a heartfelt and visceral look at more universal and ideological themes of love, loss, tolerance and acceptance, to name a few.
Acting, particularly from lead Amy Adams, is superb with scenes of genuine emotion and delicate intimacy throughout. Jóhann Jóhannsson's original score matches this sentiment well, with deep and resonating crescendos and delicate strings, which create subdued and deeply moving scenes.
Though the scenario of aliens landing on earth could be viewed as cliché and overdone (Close Encounters of the Third Kind [1977], Independence Day [1996], Contact [1997], etc.), it is ultimately in the final act where Arrival steps into new ground, and transforms into a movie that demands your attention and reflection long after the credits have rolled.