The Beauty of Human Life

Rating: 10/10 (1 March 2017)

Arrival is one of the most brilliantly written films that I have ever seen. When I initially saw the trailer for this film, I assumed that it would be a pointless sci-fi movie about aliens invading Earth, humanity's struggle for survival, and the realization that we are not alone in the universe. However, I found that Arrival actually focuses more on the beauty of human life than it does on the struggle to communicate with aliens. The writer of Arrival did a beautiful job of making the audience believe that Louise was currently suffering from the loss of her daughter when the movie began. But it is not until the end of the movie that viewers realize that Louise's daughter has not even been born yet. I have not had a movie surprise me in a long time as much as Arrival has. At the end of the movie, Louise is given the ability to see into future. Because of this, she foresees that she and Ian fall in love and have a baby girl together. But Louise also sees that their daughter, Hannah would die of cancer, and Ian would end up leaving her from grief. In the last moments of the movie, Louise is faced with the question of having Hannah, knowing that Hannah would ultimately die from cancer, or finding a way to not have Hannah and spare herself from future pain. Louise asks Ian, "If you could see your whole life ahead of you, would you change things?" Ian replied, "Maybe I'd say what I felt more often." The movie leads you to believe that Louise decides to have Hannah, even though she knows that Hannah will be taken from her. This is what is so beautiful about this movie to me. Life is short and busy. We as humans become consumed by work and stress and we take the time we have with one another for granted. We do not know when death will part us from loved ones. But Louise is given the gift/curse of seeing the future and knowing the pain she will endure by losing her daughter. But because of what she knows is coming, she is able to make the most of the short time she has with Hannah. She saw her daughter was worth having even if she could only hold her for a short time. The beauty of human life is that it is short. But with the time we have we can hold the ones we love. We feel pain, excitement, sadness, loss, remorse, happiness, longing, and joy. These are all things that make us alive. The tragedy of human life is that we miss all these things and we wish our lives away until one day we look back and realize that we didn't make the most of the time we had.