Arrival reviewed by Mark Kermode

I thought it was really terrific I thought it was I was really excited because I heard good things about it and I was worried that what that would do therefore was to set me up for disappointment but quite the opposite here's a number of things I like about it firstly you're quite right that it owes a lot to contact and there is also echoes of close encounters and there is some thigh mattock background noise of Solaris for example I actually thought the film it reminded me of visually the most was Gareth Edwards monsters which is again is a science fiction film that doesn't look necessarily like a science fiction film it's not just to do with the nature of the alien creatures but it's actually to do with that tactile hand held up close and personal you know this is a story about people what happens are happening to them but they happen to be happening against the backdrop of an extraterrestrial arrival rather than invasion I thought there was an awful lot of the tone dirty sci-fi is the term that Bradford young is the cinematographer here used to describe that particular quality and I think that's absolutely right second thing is um I think it's a brilliant distillation of the short story which is very short actually by Ted Chiang the story of your life and when you read that story that story is so much bound up with Kurt Vonnegut and tralfamadorians and slaughterhouse-five and all those sort of you know those very very Vonnegut ideas and I think that what the screenwriter is managed to do is to take the essence of that story and turn it into a screenplay which is really accessible that essentially ends up discussing quite complicated ideas such as you know sapir-whorf hypothesis about cognition being determined by language but do so in a way which is absolutely accessible to what to me for one thing you know and I think a mainstream audience wouldn't any point feel that they would you know that these concept the complicated concepts were we you know whirr whirr whirr whirr baffling I felt that it really sort of invited you in it asks you to uh you know to think about these things about the way in which language and semantics change your view of the world I thought it did that fascinatingly I thought the design was terrific I the spaceships hanging in the sky to quote Douglas Adams much the way that bricks don't was really Erie something about that pebble design and the pebble almost looking like it's leaning over everything about it looks wrong everything about it looks brilliantly alien in that genuine way that you know alien not like because when you think about a set up of a movie which has monolithic spaceships appearing low-hanging you know on these key locations around the world you really think of Independence Day and it's completely the antithesis of that it's not an Independence Day at all but I think that's the spectacle of the way in which those alien shapes hang is really good because it emphasizes the other nurse as indeed does either johan johansson or johan Johansson I'm sorry my pronunciations have never been good score the other thing that I think is really terrific about it is that it is a film which addresses a tragedy and it is a film which addresses emotion and as Amy Adams said in that interview you know it is Pritz about parental bonds and all those things and it's a film which is absolutely has in Amy Adams a really strong female lead through whose eyes the whole film is refracted and in whose journey you you know you see all the the real themes of the film which is not really to do with space travel it's to do with the way in which we understand the world and I think it's a film which manages to have you said in the brilliantly in that interview notes a film which starts by breaking your heart and you're sort of therefore in that kind of heartbroken mode at the beginning and the film then talks about the way in which joy and love and grief and mourning and celebration can all be refracted through the prism of the way in which you understand the world so it's it is dealing with very and as I said if you read the short story I mean you do really think I'm how on earth are they going to turn that into a film how on earth are they going to make that into something which has all the right elements to work as you know as a cinematic spectacle I think it bodes very well for denis villeneuve incident I'm so glad that she said didn't even because I'm you know hands up I was about to say daddy saying Dennis in the course of the interview then she suddenly says Denis to the okay french-canadian so that's you think the French Canadians have a cotton strip called Denis the Manny and we should put blondie on that we should put the Bondi on yeah buddy I think it bodes very well for the forthcoming Blade Runner sequel because evidently he is somebody who understands I mean it's a it as I said it's a it is wonderfully cine literate in terms of the way in which it understands the genre but also it's one of those films that the fundamental concerns of filmmaking to do with characters story story arc the way in which something's put together basically remain unchanged whatever genre he's working in and I think you know coming off the back of Sicario and then doing this what you see is good solid cinematic storytelling I also think that it is a film which has a genuinely positive and progressive and uplifting message despite the darkness that it you know that it describes and I think that there are times when through sheer coincidence movies seem to be the right movie to come along at that moment and I saw this movie this week and it felt like exactly the right moment to see this film I have often believed that cinema is something that can transport you and can uplift you and can bring out the very best in people and I have to say that with everything that's going on this week arrival was the movie that I wanted it to be that I needed it to be and I really felt like through some strange aligning of the stars it was in the right place at the right time

Channel: kermodeandmayo

Views: 245,991

Keywords: Denis Villeneuve, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Arrival, Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review, BBC, 5live

Id: RvAUN6QPyco

Length: 6min 13sec (373 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 11 2016