Arrival
Tags: flashback

Plot synopsis:
The film starts with the voice of Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) speaking to someone. We see moments of Louise with her daughter Hannah, from her birth, through her childhood years, up until her death at a young age from a fatal disease.Louise is a linguist and language professor. She begins her lecture to a small class when the students' phones go off. One student asks Louise to turn on the news. It is reported that in at least 12 sites around the world, there are enormous extraterrestrial vessels touching down.Louise is visited in her office by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) to utilize her linguistic skills to attempt to communicate with the aliens. At night, Weber shows up in a chopper to escort Louise to the base. She joins them and meets a theoretical physicist named Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner).The team arrives at the Montana landing site, while the other 11 sites around the world have bases set up as well and are continuously updating each other on any progress. Louise, Ian, and several others are brought up to the top of the pod, where the lack of gravity allows them to stand before the barrier that keeps the aliens back. They are surrounded by a mist and they appear as large tentacled creatures (later called "heptapods"). Louise attempts to communicate with them by writing "human" on a board. One of the creatures emits a black cloud that forms a circular symbol. In a bold move, Louise removes her hazmat suit, attempting to gain their trust. She presss her palm to the barrier. One of the creatures extends a limb and presses it against the barrier in an imitation of Louise's gesture. After Ian shucks his hazmat suit, he decides to call the two aliens "Abbott and Costello."Tensions rise around the country as uncertainty in the heptapods' intentions has sparked panic, causing people to loot and riot.As the sessions go on, the team records the symbols produced by the heptapods to determine which symbols are translations of the words that Louise has been teaching them ("love", "time", etc.). Later when Louise "touches" them again, she starts to see visions of Hannah.China's General Shang (Tzi Ma) doesn't trust the aliens and has his team deviate from the set plan by not having the Chinese site communicate their intelligence to the other sites. The Chinese site attempts to communicate with the heptapods through a game of mahjong.Louise starts to experience dreams in the alien language, while still seeing memories of Hannah as a child showing Louise a drawing of her parents in a TV show she made up. Hannah asks Louise if it's her fault that her father left, but Louise assures her that's not the case. In the present, Louise questions the aliens as to who this girl is.The aliens deliver a message that is translated to "Use weapon", which generates even greater tension among the other sites. The Chinese deliver an ultimatum to the aliens - they have 24 hours to leave, or the military will initiate a strike. Several other sites gear up to do the same thing, while the sites all disconnect from each other. Louise tells Weber that they need to make sure the aliens know the difference between a weapon and a tool.Louise and Ian go up into the vessel by themselves, unaware that some of the soldiers placed a C4 bomb in there. As they try to communicate with the heptapods, Abbott starts to create a message with hundreds of tiny symbols scattered all over the place. As the bomb is ready to detonate, Abbott drops Louise and Ian from the vessel as it explodes.Louise awakens in the base camp. With a strike set to happen, she and Ian race to decode Abbott's message. Ian deduces that many of the symbols for "time" are scattered, but he can't exactly determine what it all means. Agent Halpern (Michael Stuhlbarg) then tells the others about how severe the situation is since Russia has reportedly executed one of their own in order to keep their secrets.Louise rushes toward the vessel, which sends down a small pod to allow her to go up to the ship. She comes face-to-face with Costello, who tells her that Abbott is dying from the explosion. Costello emits more black symbol smoke, causing Louise to remember Hannah again. Costello then helps Louise to realize that the heptapods' language is meant to be their tool, or rather, a gift to the humans. By understanding their language, they are able to see into the future. This means that all of Louise's memories of Hannah weren't flashbacks, but flash-FORWARDS. Costello explains that they were sent to give humans their language so that they may help the aliens in 3,000 years time.18 months into the future, Louise and Shang will meet face-to-face, and he will express gratitude for her work and efforts, which ended up convincing him just what the alien's true intentions were. Louise takes Halpern's phone and contacts Shang to his personal number. She and Ian lock themselves away as she tries to send a message in which she tells Shang his wife's dying words.The Chinese military decides to stand down as reports start flooding in from all over the world. The vessels all rise from the ground and leave Earth in a cloudy mist. Louise and Ian watch them leave. Ian says that the biggest thing about the whole process wasn't meeting the aliens, but it was meeting Louise. Louise then sees more visions of herself with Hannah, but this time with Ian in the picture. They are to become a couple that will eventually become parents to Hannah. In the present, Louise and Ian embrace, and she tells him she forgot what it was like to be held by him.

Review: People trying to point out every possible flaw to look and sound smarter while at the same time hailing far worse movies.
Actually what you get is a film that approaches the grandeur of "Close Encounters" but interlaces it with the intellectual depth of "Inception", the mystery of "Intersteller" and a heavy emotional jolt or two of "Up".Amy Adams ("Batman vs Superman") plays Dr Louise Banks, a language teacher at a US university facing a bunch of particularly disengaged students one morning.
Assisted by Ian Donelly (Jeremy Renner, "Mission Impossible IV/V", "Avengers"), a theoretical physicist, the pair try to crack the code against a deadline set by the inexorable rise of international tensions – driven by China's General Chang (Tzi Ma, "Veep"; "24").Steven Spielberg made a rare error of judgement by adding scenes in his "Special Edition" of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" showing everyman power guy Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) entering the alien spacecraft.
If I were to be critical, some of the dialogue at times is a little TOO clever for its own good and smacks of Aaron Sorkin over-exposition: the comment about "They have a word for it in Hungary" for example went right over my head.Denis Villeneuve ("Sicario") deftly directs, leaving the pace of the story glacially slow in places to let the audience deduce what is going on at their own speed.
The film in fact has very little exposition, giving you lots to think about after the credits roll: there were elements of the story (such as her book) that still generated debate with my better half on the drive home.Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner are first rate and an effectively moody score by Jóhann Jóhannsson ("Sicario"; "The Theory of Everything") round off the other high-point credits for me.An extraordinary film, this is a must see for sci-fi fans but also for lovers of good cinema and well-crafted stories.(Agree?
You see, the way I understand it is that the director had to dumb it down for us and wrap this movie in a sci-fi genre and add aliens so you could relate it to something you are familiar with and hoped, really hoped that we try to understand the true purpose, the message behind all this.
Arrival was one of my most anticipated movies of 2016 I loved all the trailers for this film and the talent behind it made me even more excited to see the final product and I can safely say that I was blown away by the final product.
The whole mystery of why the aliens are here is done perfectly you're more that likely to change your mind at least once and when a mystery like that is built up for so long it's hard to make the eventual discovery satisfying but in this case it was, the eventual reveal makes you look at this film in an entirely different way, the film also doesn't feel the need to answer every question it asks leaving certain things ambiguous that allows the viewer to think on their own answers.
This decade, Villeneuve has crafted some fantastic works of art in the form of 'Prisoners', 'Sicario' and now this science fiction gem, and here's hoping his career further develops with more movie masterpieces coming our way.
In a world where mysteries remain and the possibility of extraterrestrial life still stands unanswered, 'Arrival' approaches this with it's cliché-free take on the genre.The relatively unknown Bradford Young provides the film with some of the most stunning cinematography ever conceived, taking advantage of the twilight hour to give the film its somewhat unique look, supported magnificently by Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson whose score is both haunting and beautiful.
If you're someone looking for a science-fiction tale that keeps you guessing and thinking throughout, with fantastic performances, cinematography, music and near-flawless direction, then 'Arrival' is the film for you.
The book is out there, so if you really must know before you see a film, read, "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang...but I highly recommend you see the movie first.
Other films have tackled the question of humanity being alone in the cosmos, from classics like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) "The War of the Worlds" (1953) "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) "Arrival" deals with the idea of alien landings in a much different way than traditional Sci-Fi films.
But the stand out performance was that of Amy Adams who played a truly troubled and conflicted character.In "Sicario" Vileneuve finished the movie with unanswered questions and left a lot to the imagination.
Too often we see science fiction films, particularly involving aliens, that are only interested with how we, as a species, would fight back against them.Every now and then however, we get a film like Denis Villeneuve's Arrival that comes along and offers something totally different.
The film uses its tagline "Why are they here?" quite literally to deliver one of the most fascinating films you will see all year.Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is one of the world's leading linguists, who gets recruited by the military to assist in translating alien communications.
Along with mathematician Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), Louise attempts to get answers as to why twelve alien spacecrafts have landed at different locations around the world.I had only seen three of Denis Villeneuve's previous films before yet I have been impressed with the diversity of his films, a trend he continues with Arrival.
He instead makes films to challenge the audience, leaving them to either complete the puzzle themselves or question the morality of his characters.With Arrival, Villeneuve has crafted a truly thought provoking science fiction film, telling the story in a slow yet masterful manner, leading to a beautiful pay off.
Young's cinematography captures the sense of wonder perfectly while Jóhannsson's score heightens the sense of mystery surrounding the alien visitors and their intentions.Coming to the performances, Arrival features a real emotional heartbeat thanks to a fantastic performance from the always dependable Amy Adams, who conveys such a wide range of emotions as Louise, growing in confidence with each session she gets with the visitors.
Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker offer some fine support for Adams but there is no doubting this film belongs to her.Arrival is one of the best films of the year and a really great example of science fiction filmmaking from Denis Villeneuve, who is perfectly suited to bring us the sequel to Blade Runner next year.
I would happily put this film in the same league as something like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, one of the all time greats of sci-fi..
Consider the DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951/2008) or CUBE (1997) or the more recent MARTIAN (2015).The second type is an oddity because most of the heavy lifting takes place in your brain, not on the screen.I consider ARRIVAL the best example of the "Smart" genre ever done.These films, because they are so subjective, require a central character that the viewer can identify with.
I'm not saying that all the bad reviews have no merits, we all know that we sometimes wake up on the cynical side of the bed, but most of them in this matter, are written by empty tripe(s) waiting to be filled at the sausage factory, or by cynics way too enclosed in their narcissistic bubble to realize that the quietness in the theater at the end of the movie, was because of the introspection of a moved audience.
The influences of Stanley Kubrick on science fiction films has been noted time after time, but Arrival picks up its Kubrick vibes with it's slow sense of discovery, even if Amy Adams and her technology moves around the screen more frantically than 2001: A Space Odyssey.
A lot of sci-fi films (like the new Star Trek released this summer) don't create that unfolding sense of science/alien-related mystery.
The studios hold up known actors (we know how they will react or act in each situation - to ensure a fat box- office), a director known to the general public and who has a few well received films on the critics, and try to create these supposed sci-fi movies very close to the scientific aspect of science and reality.
Putting thus absurd ideas, nothing to do with reality, and in the middle of the film, transform it into a drama (sometimes in a melodrama - Interstellar), in order to try to manipulate the audience, emotionally.Arrival is the other of this new sci-fi wave, it is beautifully photographed, with great special effects, excellent soundtrack (which does not represent the quality of the technical team at all, only that the director and the producers have a big budget to spare at will), but in the background these new movies are not sci-fi movies in any aspect.But things are starting to fall in the last act of the film, when filmmakers have to appeal to the emotional side.
The story could be fun, the reviews looked fine.The first 2 minutes into the movie, you start already to get doubts it will be good.
The producers run out of money already, You end up with a lady who has a paranormal mind, can suddenly talk with the aliens.The aliens prepared for millions of years to meet this hot lady to tell her sweet stories, and then leave.PS: When Amy and that other guy are in the field looking at the spaceship, you can see the mountains in the far distance.
After the arrival of the crafts and the initial meeting of humans and aliens it went downhill from there and I was pretty bored and glad when the movie finished.
First of all i have to laugh at all the so called scifi intellectuals who think this is a good scifi film and decry anyone who doesn't like it as a moronic sheep.It actually proves who the sheep are - just because a film has a totally moronic plot that defies explanation that immediately makes it profound and somehow mind expanding and that a select few Scifi fans with their heads up their bum understand - yeah right.
Having cinema-goers leave the cinema thinking they maybe have learnt something which is false is unforgivable emphasising once more what a con this movie is and how blinkered all of these so called intelligent Scifi buffs are!The movie moves along like a funeral procession with an awful dirge of whining violins how depressing but it illustrates the directors high opinion of what he thinks he is making.Folks this is no epic in any way - its some guy who saw a couple of octopi in an aquarium squirting ink to get rid of predators and thought hey i can make a movie out of this and so proceeded to do so.There are so many plot holes and unbelievable things in this movie like the army being involved in all the decisions - nowhere do we see the President or anyone in charge of operations , a bomb mysteriously gets planted in an alien ship that has travelled millions of miles yet doesn't detect it , the ships mysteriously disappear in a cloud of dust.The whole movie actually looked like it had been shot on a shoestring budget from the poor black eggs hanging in the sky to the cheap ships interiors and if that wasn't bad enough Jeremy Renner looked like he was bored stiff and just looking to pickup a nice paycheque!The only thing i enjoyed was reading the pontificating so called scifi fans that are so much more intelligent than us mere mortals that they thought this film was too intelligent for us to understand - no guys it is you who are too up your own bahookies to see that the director was taking the Mickey out of all of the hoighty toighty Scifi buffs who have no life and cant see the wood for the trees and trees for the wood by making a morose and clichéd retread of a zillion other better movies about the human condition and the meaning of life!
He thinks he can achieve profundity by having lots of loud music which drowns out the actors' voices, by having them mumble and whisper, by most of the scenes being so dark you have to peer through the gloom (all the better to see nothing, my dear), by having one of those identikit Hollywood children who lisps like an infant and cannot speak clearly, by not really showing his aliens except through a haze, by pretending to be something of a philosopher, with all the assiduity of a drunk ranting in the street.
I will never understand why people rate films highly based solely on a twist at the end, when there is little or no tension, little or no atmosphere building throughout.I think people value a twist too highly.This movie also exhibits one of my other great hates.
I give it 1 out of 10.This film COULD have been something, but is really NOTHING.There is no satisfaction, no real good plot, writing is awful, the movie is boring, this is utterly a waste of time!The only thing that is aceptable is the music and camera work.
I'm a big sci-fi movie fan especially if its story is quite philosophical and cerebral which IS the case with Arrival, but it got bogged down in the complexities of showing how humans would communicate with a superior alien intelligence amidst a distrusting and violent Earth society.
There are dream like flashbacks that at first don't make sense, combined with a lot of Amy Adam's long drawn out ogle eye'd tearful stares of bewilderment morphing to fear bordering on amazement as she attempts to communicate and build a vocabulary as a translator with the alien entities.
Great visuals and audio to keep me interested in how this was done.But this movie relies heavily on building tension this way from an audience with high expectation and anticipation of what's going to happen next with a pay out that is a bit of a let down, drawn out and confusing to keep up with.
There were just a handful in the audience that night.Besides I was expecting something more profound than Jodie Foster's "Contact", a much better movie at relying on audience expectation and anticipation from experiencing a unique imagining of what it would be like to communicate with extraterrestrial alien intelligence that also explains how they overcome the limitations of space travel.
I read the reviews and it is remarkable to see that people either hated this film and referred to it as a snooze-fest, or praised all the nuances from Amy Adams' acting to the musical score, to the message for humanity.
The review guidelines says I need to leave at least five lines of text, so in order to do so, I will have to say I did like the color, music completely wrong selection and absolutely nothing original in the film..
First the good,Great graphics, well filmed.And the bad,No real story, left wondering what is really going on, Guess what, not a lot.An hour of working out translations and then it morphs into the latter part of 2001 space odessey, in the sense that there is some mystical significance which is not explained of course.Great long meaningful looks and remembrance's by the lead figure , not explained and overall the pace is glacial.Don't bother in my opinion..
I would rather watch the trailer several time than waste 2 hours of my life on this boring movie.
The CGI would not look out of place in 2006, the designs are too grey and familiar to hold one's attention, and the film is too sedentary with its fantastical elements to qualify as a visual spectacle.The characters for the most part are flat archetypes, such that were it not devoid of all humor, one could be forgiven in mistaking Arrival for a Roland Emmerich movie.
I will not discourage anyone from seeing the movie, it boasts a few solid performances and isn't at all an unpleasant time sink for an evening out or an empty afternoon, I will sum up my feelings to say that Arrival is harmless entertainment that is too conventional for its own good and makes poor use of its ideas..
The story was woeful and the script was downright stupid and boring.I completely disagree that watching this is a waste of 2 hours though, I'm sure I'll be laughing at how bad this film was for months..
Amy Adams= mehJeremy Renner= I actually like him and was disappointed that he chose to do this movie.
Most of the time the movie was spent trying to decode the Aliens language which was like deciphering an ink blot test.
By talking in whalesong.All over the world, the greatest minds are trying to establish some sort of understanding with the spacefreaks, but then Amy Adams, or the scientist she's playing, has the wonderful idea to write down the sentence "Hi, I'm Amy" on a piece of paper, and the aliens are like: Wow, we traveled over hundred of lightyears, and wanted to communicate with you in writing, but we wanted YOU to initiate it.
This is by far Villeneuve's biggest film he has tackled yet with so many strong universal themes but yet also feels very emotional and intimate from the perspective of Amy Adams's character.Unlike Villeneuve's previous works like Prisoners and Sicario, Arrival isn't a dark or twisted look at humanity.
This should have been brilliant!****SPOILER ALERT*****I love Amy Adams and think she is a great actress, and the first half of this films is suitably spooky, fully of mystery - but as soon as she gets in to the alien space ship and starts writing her name LOUISE, I just shook my head.
There are such good actors in this movie, but except for the lead Amy Adams, they had almost no role to play that contributed to the story.