Powerfully emotional

Rating: 10/10 (11 November 2016)

This is an intelligent, entertaining and powerfully emotional movie about an international close encounter of the third kind. The film's catharsis released a flood of emotion in me - it's that good. Definitely worth seeing. The Canadian director straddles the art-film and commercial film worlds. As a commercial enterprise, the film is unusual in that it is devoid of guns, explosions, chases, fistfights and the other tropes of alien visitation movies, that it has a female protagonist, and that gives precedence to feelings of love and loss over those of terror and aggression. Can't say enough about Amy Adams' performance. The score by Johann Johannsson adds immeasurably to the film's effectiveness.