A breath of fresh air from the sci-fi world

Rating: 8/10 (7 December 2018)

Can a sci-fi movie be really intimate? It can, and if you haven't checked it out already, "Arrival" does it. It's not one of a kind, "Interstellar" had a similar scope, but it offers something more. Firstly, it respects the audience in the sense that it feels plausible, and it should feel this way. How can an ambitious and surreal plot live on a basis of wacky science fiction? In the first part of "Arrival", the viewer is stunned by the dazzling images and the extraordinary hypothetical scenario. Already enough entertaining, the movie then takes another unexpected course. The plot grows more twisted, without becoming too convoluted.
One beautiful thing that sometimes happens in movies is when an already meaningful element takes on an even more significant nuance. The initial monologue about memory, about the scattered recollections from an entire life, already beautiful in itself, becomes part of the significance of the whole movie, and it's truly satisfying when it does.
"Arrival" hits the right spot and makes all the pieces fall into place, bringing an ingenious idea to life, which can also live outside the intricate sci-fi context.