Arrival | Film Review

Hey Guys x

I've been slowly making my way through the Oscar 'Best Picture' nominees, this was the next one on my list!

I'd heard a lot of good things about this film, and as the two main characters are played by Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, I kind of had high expectations.

The film is about a woman called Louise Banks who is a language expert. When aliens unexpectedly come to earth, she is recruited, along with Renner's character Ian, to try to understand their language, decipher it, and to see why the aliens are there and what they want with humans. However, while deciphering their language, Louise learns more about herself than she ever thought possible. How can one, completely unexpected event, shape your entire life?

I have to say straight away, I was a bit disappointed with this film.

Without giving anything away, not a lot happened. I mean, yes Louise and Ian tried to make contact with the aliens and to work out their language and communicate, but that was kind of... it.

They spoke about the aliens landing in different countries, but never really showed the impact of that. I know that this isn't what the film was about, but it felt very isolated. Like the aliens only really impacted the people in their immediate vicinity.

Having said this, I really did enjoy the concept. My favourite part was something that I can't talk about, but there was a twist that I didn't see coming that really made the film pick up in the last half hour or so. It was really well written and I would definitely have liked to see more of what happened later in the film.

Also, the acting was great! When I look at acting, I genuinely look to see if I think of the characters as themselves, or as the actors that portray them. While watching this, I thought of Amy Adams as Louise Banks the whole time, and that really made the film really believable and much more interesting.

The visual effects were great, it was well directed and produced, that can't be faulted. It was a good film and I'd definitely recommend it. As I said, the only thing that I didn't like was the fact that, for the first hour or so, I didn't feel like much happened.

I wouldn't give it the 'Best Picture' Oscar (but I'll talk about my Oscar wishes and predictions in a post on Friday) but I'd definitely give it the Oscar for production design, because it does deserve something!

Thank you for reading.

Have you seen Arrival? Comment below! What did you think?

Lou xx