Review of Arrival (2016) by Ssh83 — 12 Nov 2016

After discussing with a few smart people about this movie. It boils down to this. People LOVE this movie because liberal art saves humanity (it's like how geeks like geek-protagonist stories and feminists like feminist affirmation stories).

All governments and scientists are oblivious, so only liberal art viewers are wise to the truth through their heart-felt interpretations. If my interpretation is different from everyone else's, that must means everyone else is wrong! Liberal art also gets magical power if they remain faithful to their instincts that will effortlessly solve all their problems.

Probably the worst deus ex machina ever but good affirmation to trust in your heart/dream and everything will magically go well! Lastly, a movie spends a long time to sell the protagonist as a good hero, only to unwittingly turn her to be a narcissistic psychopath because she is OK with the thing that the most feeling humans would spend every living second to change.

So you'd like this movie IFF you like all the glorification/affirmation, so you basically want a disney movie disguised as sci-fi "smart" "adult" film (so you can feel all wide-eyed and happy without the guilt of being immature for getting that from a kid's movie).

Then also you're not smart enough to realize everything after the big twist was horrible, so you can eat it all up without wanting to strangle yourself during the movie.