*Sigh* I always assume I'll enjoy Denis Villeneuve's films based on their descriptions and trailers. But when I actually watch them there's always a cold, glass wall between me and the films--not unlike the transparent wall that separates linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) from the squid-like aliens in Arrival.
Take, for example, his 2013 film Prisoners, about a man (Hugh Jackman) who will go to any lengths, including kidnapping and torturing a mentally disabled man (Paul Dano), to find his missing daughter. Prisoners should inspire outrage, anger, fear, empathy...something. It left me cold and unimpressed.
And then his follow-up, Enemy, was even worse. Described as an "erotic thriller" (HA.) starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a man who meets another man who is exactly like him (are they twins? the same person but living on different planes of reality?), the film is neither erotic nor thrilling. The two emotions I experienced while watching it were confusion and annoyance.
I haven't seen last year's Sicario, and I heard it's really good. But I'm not champing at the bit to watch it.
And now Arrival, about mysterious black obelisks that show up at various points around the earth, hovering just above the ground, arrives in theaters. And I will admit that it's not as disappointing as Villeneuve's previous efforts--if only for it's sleek, artful cinematography--but it still didn't make me feel much beyond a vague interest.
As mentioned above, Amy Adams plays a linguist, Louise Banks, who is recruited by the US military to communicate with the alien creatures who have arrived mysteriously around the earth. Banks teams up with Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner, playing a refreshing role as a male sidekick), a mathematician, to see if they can figure out the aliens' language and ask them why they have arrived before more macho political figures decide to say "fuck it" and bomb the aliens to hell.
The scenes where Banks and Donnelly communicate with the aliens are the best in the film: the humans are sucked up into the aliens' pod, and through a glass wall they can see the creatures that look like giant squids (they name the aliens "heptapods"). The creatures communicate by spraying an inky substance that forms itself into a complex, detailed circle--almost like an entire sentence in the form of a shape:
Banks, Donnelly, and their crew eventually figure out how to "read" the aliens' ink circles and are able to ask them questions using a software that translates their questions into the heptapod language. How they do this is, perhaps mercifully, glossed over in favor of spending more time on the consequences of their (mis)communications with the aliens. When they ask "Why are you here?", the creatures respond "Give weapon to humans" and the governments around the world read this as a threat, despite Banks' insistence that the aliens might mean "tool" instead of weapon. The film turns into a race against time to clarify what the aliens' purpose is before the Chinese government uses a tank to blow the aliens right out of the sky.
Of course, there is much more to Arrival than this straightforward plot. I won't give anything away, but I'll say that I found the ending both surprising and eye roll-inducing. I wish Villeneuve had stuck to directing a sci-fi thriller instead of rubbing a bunch of MEANING in my face at the very end.
So, while Arrival is, in many aspects, a pretty solid movie--it's quite beautiful, it has an interesting plot, and it has a third act that upends the first two acts--I still came away feeling empty. As with the director's other films, I feel like I should feel something, but that cold, glass, frictionless wall is in the way. I don't think Villeneuve is a bad director, I just think he's not the director for me. Just like some people hate Wes Anderson while I practically worship him, it all comes down to how you connect (or don't) with a certain aesthetic and worldview.I don't consider Arrival a waste of my money or time, but I also know that I'll forget it and never have any interest in watching it again.
Grade: B-
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