A Terrific Detective Thriller and an Existential Meditation

Rating: 10/10 (21 May 2018)

The film starts with a peaceful and perfectly ordinary celebration among a couple families and their kids. But when two girls go missing the tension slowly builds leaving the audience wondering without actually seeing what happened to the girls, so the audience identifies with the characters as the clues unfold. And the opening of the film has many obvious religious symbols and references that foreshadow some later reveals, but it doesn't become heavy-handed.
With perfect casting the mystery unfolds and eventually the true perpetrators are revealed with a well-written and satisfying conclusion. The film actually operates at least partially as a comment on morality, how far is it really okay to go in order to find kidnapped victims and in the final act it also is a meditation on what it means to believe in God or not, especially for the fully committed believer. In the Bible Abraham was asked by God to sacrifice his son, but is that really a reasonable thing to accept as a test from a God? What if God mercilessly and pointlessly took your child? What possibly lesson is there to be learned from such torment?
Or maybe there is no ghost in the sky and the universe is just indifferent.
Great film from a stellar filmmaker, Denis Villeneuve. If you liked Arrival and Sicario, then you'll enjoy this. Highly recommended.