Arrival is not your ordinary sci-fi movie.

Before I watched it, I thought it would be a story like Alien or Independence Day, where an alien threat emerges and the humans work together to destroy it once and for all. Instead, what I saw on the screen was a slow-paced, introspective film about linguistics, science, and the nature of time. Taking a completely different direction than the traditional sci-fi mold, the director Denis Villeneuve tells us in Arrival a smart, compelling, and interesting story that raises many interesting philosophical questions on language, communication, and the nature of time.

The plot of Arrival begins with 12 giant alien spaceships landing on 12 different locations across the globe. As a result, mass hysteria breaks out all over the planet. Dr. Louise Banks, a famed linguist, is secretly contacted by the United States Military to help them decipher the alien language and figure out why the aliens, which she names heptapods for their seven legs, have arrived on earth. At the alien landing site in Montana, she meets Ian Donnelley, a famous astrophysicist, and together they work to decode the cryptic alien language. However, they are suddenly racing against the clock when China and four other nations, also having alien landings in their respective territories, decide that they will use military force against the heptapods if they do not leave earth in a certain amount of time.

The first thing about Arrival that impressed me was its cinematography. Like a skilled seamstress, the movie weaves together scenes that capture and highlight the feeling and emotion of the moment. Take for example one of my favorite scenes in the movie, when Louise, Ian, and the rest of their team enter the alien spaceship for the first time. This scene starts with a wide panning shot of the giant, glossy black, half oval-shaped alien spaceship, as if to emphasize how massive it is compared to the rolling hills it towers above in the background. The camera then zooms in on Louise, Ian and others stationed under the ship. As they stumble onto a portable elevator in a brightly colored hazmat suits, the doors to the alien spaceship slowly creak open, revealing a long, elevator-shaft like tunnel that extends upwards to a destination we cannot see. The way the camera is used in this scene — how it shows every facial expression in detail, and how it zooms in on minute details on the alien ship — left me feeling intensely alienated and unsettled. The sound track in this scene is also excellent, with music low in pitch, and sounding extremely foreboding and alien. The heavy breathing of Dr. Banks and the mechanical whirrs of the machinery on the ground that are heard in the background add a palpable feeling of tension and anxiety.

In tandem with the excellent cinematography, the acting in Arrival is also superb. Forest Whitaker does a great job as Colonel Weber, who is seen as hard and tough. Jeremy Renner also performs very well as astrophysicist Ian Donnelley, Louise’s witty, considerate and protective partner. Tzi Ma’s acting is very impressive as well; he plays General Shang, the somewhat cold and seemingly unapproachable Chinese general. However, the real star of this film is Amy Adams, in her amazing portrayal of Dr. Louise Banks. Her acting is incredibly emotive and meditative, and when her character feels distraught or fearful, like in the scene where she first meets the aliens, I was in turn left feeling that way all the more.

**Spoilers ahead! Read at your own risk.** Dr. Banks is no doubt the central figure in the movie. She is not only the leading linguist who ends up successfully decoding some of the alien language, but she also represents a critical element in communication with the aliens—overcoming the defensive attitude of the humans and being open-minded towards them. Each moment of her journey to successfully communicate with the aliens requires Dr. Banks to have all the more courage and determination to open herself up to them.

Related to the general theme of communication between the humans and aliens in Arrival is the more specific and yet all the more interesting topic and visual images of linguistics—especially the striking difference in language between the humans and the heptapods. The movie describes the heptapod language as “free of time” and having no “forwards or backwards.” As a product of this nonlinear language, heptapod is written in circles, each with lines that branch off the main body — very different from the linear left-to-right writings of most human languages. It is interesting to note that the aliens “write” by using their pods to first spurt out a darkish, ink-like liquid and then let the liquid form beautiful circles of different size and shape in the air. After supposedly being read or seen, these beautiful circles vanish. The way the heptapods write reminds me of an intricate calligraphy, something from the early dynasties of China. The American Chinese author Ted Chiang, whose novel “Story of Your Life” the movie is based upon, may well be familiar with this ancient Chinese art of writing.

The language of the aliens is a reflection of their experience and perception of time, which is the film’s other main theme. The story of Arrival is told in a very unique way, similar to how the story of Billy Pilgrim is told in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse Five, where Billy Pilgrim has become “unstuck in time” and experiences the past, present, and future in a completely nonlinear order. Periodically throughout the movie, while learning to decipher the heptapod language, Dr. Louise Banks has visions of herself and a young girl who becomes terminally ill. Eventually it is revealed that because she has learned the heptapod language, she can now perceive time as the heptapods do. In her visions, time is unconstrained by the linear model of human time, and she is able to see the past, present and future all at once.

Because of this new perception of time, Dr. Banks realizes that the visions she has been having is just her “remembering” the future, and that the weapon the heptapods have been offering to the humans is their language. The seemingly unthinkable experience and perception of time and the twisted story line are reinforced in Arrival by the unique design of the aliens and their spaceships. The heptapods in the movie are unlike any other alien I’ve seen. Most aliens in modern media usually fall into two categories, either looking humanoid (Gungans from Star Wars, E.T. from E.T.) or bug like (Buggers from Enders Game, Zerg from Starcraft). However, the aliens in this movie are shaped almost like hands, with seven long spindly legs as the “fingers.” The alien spaceship also has an extremely unique design. Although the shape of the spaceship is a simple half oval, its surface is glossy black and has little texture. The lack of visible texture makes the alien spaceship look unnaturally smooth, to the point that I physically felt uncomfortable while looking at it juxtaposed against the Montana hills in the background. Finally, the film is shot with an extremely dark color palate, with the greys and blacks being extremely pronounced, while the originally vibrant greens and blues look extremely dull and faded in the background, making the entirety of the film seem hazy and not of this world, and making the aliens even more unfamiliar and mysterious.

I give Arrival a 4.5/5 due to its brilliant storytelling, cinematography, and directing. I recommend this movie to people whose age is 13 and up, because it has a lot of deep and complex themes, and younger viewers may feel bored or confused.

In this film, moments of the twisted mixture of past, present, and future challenges my belief that time is a linear straight line, and gives me endless food for thought. If Dr. Banks has knowledge of the future, does that mean the universe is deterministic, since the future cannot be changed? And how does language change how you think about certain things? And if you knew what the future holds, would you attempt to change it? Arrival only attempts to answer the last question. As Dr. Banks says in the movie, “Despite knowing the journey, and where it leads, I embrace it, and I welcome every moment of it.” Even though she knows what is going to happen in her life, instead of becoming nihilistic or depressed, she focuses on the good moments that come with it. And with this, Arrival ends, leaving us with many more questions than answers, and with a completely unique movie going experience unlike any sci-fi movie I have seen before.