A strange thing is memory. It works differently than I thought. We are all captured by time, by its inexorable move.

Rating: 10/10 (16 January 2019)

"Arrival" is a sci-fi tape from Canadian master Dani Villeneuve, who for the first time works in this genre, but copes with it like a brave veteran. This is a stunningly beautiful, touching, piercing and even meditative film that gives the viewer an unforgettable experience.
One of the best linguists on the planet performed by Amy Adams is picked up in the middle of the night by the US military in order to find a common language with one of the twelve suddenly appeared alien ships. Along with her, the physicist is being played by Jeremy Renner, who, for the most part, is assigned the role of assistant. The general, played by Forrest Whitaker, demands that scientists find out from aliens as quickly as possible what the purpose of the latter is on our planet. In parallel, we are told the story of the personal life of the heroine Adams, and somewhere in the background, through TV broadcasts, you can watch the economic and political crisis occur on Earth. Surprisingly, none of these lines turns out to be superfluous, and by the end they merge into an amazingly beautiful and skillful piece, where there is not a single extra detail.
Frankly speaking, this is a classic film of the "Hollywood period" by Dany Villeneuve - a dark, tedious, tense and intriguing movie, where it's unclear to the very end how it all ends. But if in previous works Villeneuve kept the final twist right up to the final, then in "Arrival" this twist is incredibly smooth and it is designed not to surprise the viewer, but to make him collect the overall picture in his head. And it damn well works for this movie.
Villeneuve himself called his tape "a slow striptease," and it's really better not to invent a comparison. Some aliens have to wait quite a long time to see in all its glory, but they are made amazingly. The language of aliens is no less effectively made by their way of communicating, which is really very different from human. But the communication problems of two civilizations will be of interest to absolutely everyone, not just linguists - after all, the language in "Arrival" has tremendous plot importance, and after watching you want to immediately learn it, or at least translate a couple of sentences.
In the end, you understand that "Arrival" is really something like the cinematic equivalent of a symphony, which in the final reaches incredible harmony and polyphony. All elements of this tape, previously played separately, begin to sound together and are connected into something single and indivisible. If up to this point it is still possible to resist the "Arrival", then at the time of the denouement, Dany Vilev completely disarms the viewer, leaving him on the direct path to the catharsis.
Much more could have been written about Amy Adams' awesome game (give her an Oscar already!), Johann Johannson's terrific music or Bradford Young's hypnotic camera work, but the fact that "Arrival" is so holistic, so harmonious work, that "dissect" its parts simply have no desire. Harmony in the film is generally one of the key themes, and Villeneuve succeeds not only to show it on the screen, but also to embody it in the film itself.
However, the most surprising thing about the "Arrival" is in the other. "Science fiction" of this movie turns out to be just a screen, behind which lies the real story about a person, love and free will. Dani Villeneuve managed to create a fascinating structure and at the same time an incredibly deep almost philosophical ribbon that absolutely everyone will be able to understand, because the theme that the director comes to in the final is all that is close to each of us.
P.S. And "Arrival" is the case when the movie wants to be revised again, as soon as it ends.