More than scientists, professors, soldiers, we're all humans – and if there's something that makes us all different from other living things is that we feel.

Rating: 8/10 (30 November 2016)

It's not just science fiction. I always say that fiction is created by those who see a better future, and because they imagine it, they create it. Imagination becomes reality. It happened before, it's like writing a draft for a possible play. "Life imitates art" it's been said. More than scientists, professors, soldiers, we're all humans – and if there's something that makes us different from other living things is that we feel. "Arrival" starts with this idea. When extraterrestrial beings arrive, Planet Earth and all within it – governments, ideologies, people – gets terrified. What's their purpose here? Coming back to reality a little bit, look what happens now in human history – we're still struggling with the same problems, and we have been facing it for many decades – war, hunger, poverty, materialism, degradation of environment, fossil-fuel-based – all of these need to be "cured" as we step into this new century. We're still learning, but the process of learning is very slow – you cannot see it easily, but from far away, in a bigger perspective. In the movie, that's why they came - they saw a glimpse of hope. Somewhere, there was greatness in us, we just needed a little push. Maybe we could return the favor one day. They arrive. Scientists and linguists try to understand strange beings with a complicate but beautiful language, this holds attention for a while and after some time gets tiring and scary, but understandable – they wanted to pass just a simple little message and that was it. No wars, no ultra super-advanced technology, no immortal life and gold. The plot plays with it, showing us the immense power of (miss) communication and interpretation and how it can affect this messy, hurry and impatient world we live in. Maybe because we're still considered a primitive species, we want quickly answers, if we don't have it, bad things happen - They will exterminate us, and what chances do we have? Comparing with a society that had discovered the interstellar travel, we would be just bacteria at their eyes. Even if they were born a few million years before us, they would be much more advanced than we are at this moment in history. So let's bomb them before they bomb us. I'm sure the viewer feels the impotence, that this scenario probably would happen in a real-like situation and you could do nothing to stop the coming apocalypse. But there's a way out: Some argue that any intelligent and violent civilization would destroy itself before getting to the stars. It's like a "firewall" rule for life across the universe. A test - If you don't get good grades, you're not going to pass. And if this rule is valid for us, certainly was valid for them. Any civilization must think itself as one. Union. And that's what "arrival" is all about. They understand us more than we understand ourselves. If you've seen your whole future life, would you change something? This question is asked by the protagonist - Amy Adams, nostalgic and beautiful as always - as she sees her future, a power maybe given by them, to see a possibility of her destiny, and all that would come with it: flowers, but also sorrow. This is deeper than meets the eye. If you knew your destiny, would you still live it? would you feel again? would you feel more? Because even a brief happy moment with someone we love makes everything worth it. That's why a general ready to declare war will change his mind in the last moment, that's why a mother who lost her child will have hope again. In all our ignorance and arrogance, there's only one thing that can make us reconsider, be better, feel more. It's been said before "For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love".
Note –the universal language we know is mathematics, and through it we could talk with any advanced civilization – but this idea had been used before in great novels like the utterly perfect "Contact" by Carl Sagan, later on made into a movie with a spectacular Jodie Foster's performance.