Review of Arrival (2016) by Waleed A — 23 May 2017

Amazing movie, very intriguing and interesting throughout. very powerful and moving. beautifully shot.. great directing.

SPOILERS.

I was worried this movie would have a vague abstract ending open to interpretation. when they started showing the play dough alien and her teaching the language I started getting so confused, wondering if it was time travel and she was affecting the past. then, in one climactic moment, the reveal. I went from not know wth was going on to understanding everything perfectly. the twist brought me to tears from how awesome it was. everything made sense at that moment. and it was a more perfect and satisfying conclusion than anything I would have come up with. and as with all great twists, they tell you the twist early in the movie, when they said something like "i thought this was the beginning, but they see time differently than us".

This movie also has a lot you can discuss afterwards. like the reason she got divorced (presumably because she told him their daughter would die and he was upset that she didn't tell him beforehand because he wouldn't have gone through with it). and the concept that the language is circular, and it doesn't matter if you read it forwards or backwards. that parallels her ability to now see time differently, not linearly. it also relates to the daughter's name being a palindrome. hannahannahannah.

She got married and had a baby knowing she would get divorced and lose the baby. I think that's the difference with seeing time all at once instead of linearly. The way we see time we would be sad at every moment after she died. The way the aliens look at time they see all of time at once so they always see that she died, but at the same time they always see every moment while she was alive and loved each other. That's kind of like when people say I wouldn't have changed anything because I cherish the time we had together. Some people can handle it well, other people would rather not even deal with it if they could avoid the pain that comes after. But I think if we could remember everything equally instead of just remembering mostly the last thing that happened , it would change our mind (2 viewings).