Venice Film Festival 2. Arrival, review – Amy Adams is out of this world. The difficulty of imagining contact with aliens is that all we can imagine is ourselves. In Midnight Special, Jeff Nichols made an affecting film about parents who learn painfully that their boy belongs to an alien species, but the final reveal was a disappointment, with futuristic Legoland flyover materialising in Louisiana. Arrival, based on a short story by Eric Chiang, is directly comparable to Midnight Special — but finds some subtler solutions. It is directed by French- Canadian Denis Villeneuve, who made the superb Emily Blunt drugs thriller Sicario and is now directing the sequel to Blade Runner. A devastating opening sequence, set to plangent chords by Max Richter, shows us genius linguist Dr Louise Banks (Amy Adams, great in this) bringing up a little girl, cherishing her and losing her to an incurable disease. Then, we move — forward or back? The news comes in: 1. Gherkin, have arrived all across the world and are floating just above the ground, with unknown intentions. The army, in the form of Forest Whitaker, recruits Louise and physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) to try to make contact with the aliens and interpret their language. For every day, the shell opens and, at the end of a kind of alien birth tunnel, behind a bright screen of light, there they are: two of them, more or less giant squid or octopi (in fact, heptapods, which don’t exist here) with grainy elephant skin. Their rumbling speech is unintelligible but Louise has the idea of trying written language — and, in squiddy ink, they produce complex circular signs which she begins to understand. Film Arrival Watch 2016 MoviesThroughout his film career, acclaimed Canadian director Denis Villeneuve has adapted to different genres, and his latest feature, Arrival, is no exception. Playing Blake Lively, Eva Longoria and Victoria Beckham Are Glam Goddesses at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival -- See Their Stunning Looks. While the armies of the world are moving towards attack, Louise finally understands that it is their very language that they have come to give, because language determines thought. Their language also transcends time, giving Louise an insight into her own future. Compellingly made, this is science fiction of substance, which is promising for the forthcoming new Blade Runner — even if, in the end, it takes us back to our own earthbound hopes and sorrows. Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout. Title: Arrival (2016) 8.6 /10. Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? What the heck is wrong with Variety readers these days? Every Variety review, going back to the 1920s, reveals the full plot of the film. Tasha Spillett discuss Indigenous learning on the land instead of a classroom Unreserved.
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