Arrival

"In Denis Villeneuve's 2016 film, Arrival, scientists work to decipher the language of and peacefully communicate with aliens who have landed on Earth before the world's military decides to attack. The film was nominated for numerous Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, unusual for a hard science-fiction film of this kind. Roche examines the film in the context of previous SF works, such as War of the Worlds, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Interstellar, arguing that "it is the greatest science-fiction film since Blade Runner and the greatest hard SF film since 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris." In addition to discussing Arrival as a science-fiction film and as part of Villeneuve's overall body of work, Roche looks at it in the context of "puzzle" films with non-linear storytelling and layering (like Memento and Inception) and women's films, given Amy Adams's lead role as the linguist protagonist who works with science rather than "intuition" while still grappling with the emotional impact of the death of her daughter. He examines the complicated role of ethics, metaphysics, and the nature of language in a genre typically marked by action and politics, with discussions of the usual dichotomy between art house cinema and blockbusters that Arrival bridges. He also delves into how various elements of the filmmaking support these themes, from the cinematography and use of space to music and sound design (the film's Oscar win was for Sound Editing)"--