Arrival

by ashdoc Fri Dec 16, 2016 12:16 am

Amy Adams plays a linguist who is shown caring for her daughter , but the daughter dies in adolescence due to cancer .However , the situation in the world is turned upside down by the appearance of 12 extraterrestrial craft containing alien species . Amy is hired by the government to make contact and try to communicate with this species using her linguistic skills .

For a layman like me , the best part of the movie was when Amy and her team is taken to the alien spaceship . The sight of Amy and Jeremy Renner ( a military theoretical physicist ) and others suddenly losing the control of gravity over them and floating and walking upwards into the spaceship through a tunnel is enthralling .

Once in contact with the aliens , Amy begins to learn their language using written symbols . Some of their messages nearly send earthlings of other countries on warpath with the aliens .

But as Amy begins to understand what the aliens really want to say , she not only gets a new concept of time and about the past and the future , but begins to understand things about her own life--a life in which Jeremy will play an important role . The aliens have a totally different understanding of time , and the understanding of their language is the key to understanding their concept of time .

It was nice to see movies go beyond the concept of 'little green men' that used to be our image of aliens in the past . But are the intentions of the aliens good or bad ? Why have they come to earth ? The movie does throw up some interesting answers .

Towards the end , I was finding it difficult to make sense of what was happening . Maybe the movie is too intellectual for ignoramuses like me . But actually the most interesting part is towards the climax . But it is only after after reading about it on a couple of sites on the internet later that I could understand it . Once I understood what I had seen , I liked the film . In the theatre I was not fully in sync with the happenings towards the end .

I can only hope that others understand the movie fully and it's 'intellectual' climax does not prove to be a impediment to box office success with the audience not fully understanding it .

Photography is great , of the alien spaceships hanging in the atmosphere full of mist and clouds ; the visuals taken from high up in the sky are breathtaking . Background score and acting by everyone is okay .

Verdict---Good .

Three and a half stars .