CAPSULE: Arrival (2016, Dir. Denis Villeneuve)

You already know I like this film. And you know I have a few issues with its execution.

You know what Arrival is about. You know Amy Adams is field linguist Louise Banks, who's brought on board by the US Military to communicate with the heptapods, whose imposing, gravity defying vessels have taken position over 12 random points across the globe.

You know that presenting a linguistic procedural out of sequence (as an approximation of non-linear thought) presents specific challenges for a filmmaker, and that Villeneuve's brand of slick, dark, visual, while fit for purpose isn't pushed far enough to really capitalise on the structural malleability of Ted Chiang's source material, ‘Story of Your Life’. His commitment to the form wavers inconsistently through unfortunate montages and climactic reveals.

You know Jeremy Renner's smartly-drawn physicist delivers a death knock line on Eric Heisserer's otherwise serviceable screenplay - a twitch in the slightly uncomfortable marriage of the theoretical and the emotional - something that till that point had survived even the Contact-esque familial bonding flashes.

You know heptapods are beautifully designed giant seven fingered hands whose language and thought are not bound by linearity. You know that this review has gone down the same path. And just as poorly.

You already know that Heisserer signals the non-linearity of his screenplay very early on. And you know that, from there, despite Denis Villeneuve's Malick-aping reveries interspersed throughout, Arrival actually reads in a remarkably linear fashion. You know that the heptapod’s freakish appearances in Banks’ experience are as effective as the menacing spiders of Villeneuve's earlier film, Enemy. That they give a glimpse into how this could have been worked to far greater psycho-linguistic effect.

You know Adams is exceptional in drawing the audience into the enormity of what this first contact means for the world at large. And that there are moments of sublime, humanity-salvaging interconnectedness. You know that when Arrival is on point, it presents a way forward for indie sci-fi.

You already know all this. Why are you here?

You have seen Arrival, haven't you?

★★★☆

Trailer: