This very esoteric film opens on the narration of Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) saying ‘Goodbye” to her daughter who is dying – from what illness we don’t know – and as the light at the end of the tunnel takes the child from her mother, the mother’s words are, “Will you come back to me?”
But in her massive loss, Dr. Banks is also a romantic at heart. She believes in beginnings and endings. Take the day ‘they’ arrived.
She was teaching her usual linguistics class on the study of the Portuguese language, questioning why it’s different than the other romantic languages. When ‘Breaking news’ disrupts her lecture – because spaceships have landed worldwide – Banks is hastily summoned by Colonel (Forest Whitaker) to aid the military in the communication of the visiting aliens.
They’ve arrived in a spaceship that looks more like a gigantic pumice stone, so at least we know they have soft feet. The spaceships sort of suspend elegantly, almost as if they might be an installation at MoMa (Museum of Modern Art.)
We begin to question “now what?” What is that they want? Will they beam us up to Mars, kill us, abduct us, what? The answer is nothing. They just suspend.
But the world can’t seem to handle that, so ‘state of emergencies’ are issued, threats of terrorism begin, the National Guard is brought in, and the leader of China gives an ultimatum while in return, the spaceship gives them none. As a matter of fact, as an audience we keep waiting for some E.T. like Terrestrial to come out and say, “Take me to your leader.” He never arrives either.
As an audience, we’ve always been fascinated by the unknown. Who else is out there? What happens when we die…where do we really go. (The interesting juxtaposition is that this film is released the week of the unexpected Presidential win. Similar in tone, it’s fear of the unknown.)
This movie not-so-neatly connects the two via a voice of reason. Not a voice we’ve ever heard, and not a voice at all, but more a tobacco stained image that shoots onto a screen – out of giant tentacles – like some sort of cleansing ritual when an Indian ‘sages the walls.’
Nevertheless, language is the foundation of civilization, so the movie gets us thinking. Space and time are different for ‘them’ – it’s non-linear.
The problem with the movie – for those accustomed to big dark explosive super hero movies – is this is very slow moving. Like a spiritual journey that could really happen to us, as opposed to say, Iron Man or the Hulk landing on your roof. Because we are such a conditioned world, the premise is a workout of sorts. The work isn’t done for us…we have to figure it out. And we’ve come a long way since the simplicity of say “Jaws” when a mechanical shark had us jumping from our seats.
Aided by a scientist (Jeremy Renner) Banks attempts to go where no one has ever gone before…Inside the spaceship and inside their hearts, souls and minds. Think “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” but more esoteric. The story alternates between Banks and her flashbacks of her living daughter, and what’s happening right now. Are the two somehow connected?
By the end of the film, and in the most subtle way, the plot delivers a message that is less alien and more about humanity. There’s a developed understanding that love is a bigger language then the spoken word. There’s a good change life and love are a circle of one. And in the words of Broadway’s Hamilton creator Love, is love, is love, is…
Three and a half tiaras