Curious Conceptual Sci-Fi That Loses Focus and Regresses on the Home Stretch

Rating: 7/10 (29 December 2016)

Like some of the genre's best, Arrival's strength is in framing an effective science fiction story around a seemingly-unrelated topic and intertwining the two until they become inseparable. In this case, we deal with the fabric of linguistics - the desperate search for a communicative first step - and how even something so dry and cerebral can make for great theatrical drama. Amy Adams is quietly empathic in the central role, a frazzled interpreter with a strong sense of personal loss who pours herself into the work. Against the backdrop of your typical plastic-sheeted, pop-up government research facility, she's our human connection to a very clinical, inhuman situation. Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker are around, and give their roles an earnest effort, but they're too cookie-cutter and predictable to amount to much. As is much of the third act, unfortunately, when we discard the delicate analysis of words (both spoken and written) and give in to more bombastic, military-driven temptations. At its core, the film really has one great revelation, and while that's effective at first, it's then rehashed and hammered until its sharp edges grow dull. I still see a lot of promise here, and while it's in the groove it makes for an authentically strange, different viewing experience. The work of Arrival's sound design team plays a big part in that, and will surely be recognized when awards season rolls around. The plot's blunt, heavy-handed climax, though, can be a bitter pill to swallow.