Problematic, modestly clever sci-fi

Rating: 5/10 (20 February 2017)

After I finished watching this, it took a little while to realize how conflicted I felt.
The movie held my attention, even though there was much more slow motion than there needed to be, and certain sequences were really dragged out much more than needed.
The central premise, once you look past the aliens and the peculiar visual elements, is that how we perceive language is fundamental to our understanding of existence.
The elimination of time seems to be a problem, and it allows us to understand that the flashbacks we are presented with are actually glimpses of the future. This is pretty clever, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. If that's the case, why does she see the future at the beginning before she learns to "time travel?" The argument could be made that her learning it later explains this. However, in that case, why is the rest of the story told in linear time? Even more troubling is the value of the circular time approach. If you can perceive all of your life simultaneously, there are no surprises. It raises a problem of free will not existing. It's a remarkably bleak existence, and the movie treats is as though this is some sort of step forward for mankind.
I actually feel like this is vaguely Lovecraftian - mankind being given knowledge that we shouldn't have that ruins our lives.