what is the point

Rating: 3/10 (18 January 2017)

I basically watched this because I'm unwell, needed something quiet to watch and knew that Jóhann Jóhannsson and Max Richter wrote the score; on that basis alone I knew it would be slow and uneventful however I was just left thinking "why did they bother coming to earth?" all they did was came to teach someone their language and then bugger off. someone suggested here that the aliens were in fact somehow Louise and Ian however that still doesn't account for the other 11 ships, was there a UK,Australian,Pakistani,Chinese etc Louise and Ian as well or are the US Louise and Ian special snowflakes? and you could argue the ouroboros style writing supports that idea but I doubt the film is clever enough for that and the artist behind the language just looked at a coffee ring left behind by his/her cup and thought "that'll do". then all the stuff with her daughter dying, what was the point in adding that - they could have just made a film about a couple and a dying daughter and fu*ked off all the alien stuff altogether - that would probably have been a much more emotionally compelling film to see.
ultimately this is a film for hipsters who are going to claim they understand some deeper meaning in this film, they'll write gushing reviews in their online magazines while the rest of us are left feeling somewhat empty and angry at knowing we basically died for 2 hours.