Disappointing Sanskrit movie

Rating: 5/10 (25 November 2016)

Arrival came too late, for me, at least. I took an introductory two- credit course on Sanskrit about 20 years ago, and although learning Sanskrit is like learning to ride a bike or kissing your uncle (you never forget how), that Sanskrit muscle memory just ain't what it used to be.
Or maybe it came to late with respect to, you know, all the other movies with a similar plot and a Shyamalanistic, tantalizing reveal that you might be able to predictably glean if you could just spot all of the clues and assemble them in time before the movie finally makes the reveal upon you, like a deck of cards being flipped over slowly, slowly in turn.
It's no Insterstellar, no Contact, no Close Encounters of the Third Kind, no Starship Troopers. And what exactly is Forest Whitaker's accent supposed to be? It's not Sanskritian, is it? What's the lesson? That human beings suck at communication? We shouldn't fight each other because we all bleed red?
From the moment the arrivers arrive, to the end when they become leavers leaving, the aliens, which look like a pair of hand models way past their prime, unimpress even though they are pressing so hard, sometimes physically so against an impervious sheet of glass.
And maybe that's the big takeaway: we're all trying to communicate so hard with each other but we put up unnecessary barriers to impede meaningful talk. If we could somehow sit down, take a deep breath, and really convey meaning in a meaningful way, we might just make it as a species.