Best Pictures #35:
2016 (89th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee
We’ve been lucky enough to have had some excellent science
fiction films recently—Interstellar
in 2014, and last year’s Best Picture nominee, The Martian in 2015—and Arrival
is among them. Those films, like Arrival,
are not just fantasies, they are pro-science. The main characters are
scientists or science minded people that use available information and
resources to solve incredible problems. To borrow a phrase from NASA, they
“work the problem.” This is what Amy Adams does as Louise Banks, a
world-renowned linguist tasked with figuring out how to communicate with
recently arrived alien beings. She doesn’t have much time, as the mysterious
alien spaceships have appeared all over the world and world governments are
nervous and frantic to figure out why the aliens are here.
You’re likely to be reminded of other science fiction films
about “first contact”: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (in which François Truffaut also tries to communicate
with aliens), Contact, and The Day the Earth Stood Still to name a few. The alien
spaceships might even remind you of the monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The aliens
themselves look like creatures from the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. But Arrival is far from derivative; it is the
perfect example of what should happen with a new entry to a well tread genre. We’ve
seen movies about aliens arriving on Earth before, but we’ve never seen one
quite like this.
There are of course visual effects and computer generated
images, but this film does not center around effects or spectacle. At the heart
of Arrival is an incredible performance
by Amy Adams that was inexplicably not nominated for Best Actress at this
year’s Academy Awards. Adams excels at using small facial expressions and her eyes
to convey clearly, but quietly what her characters are thinking and
experiencing and that’s exactly what she does here. Her performance makes the
character of Louise relatable and grounds the entire film in genuine emotion
even as it moves into heady sci-fi territory. We have no trouble believing that
Louise is the foremost authority on language and are frustrated when military
and government officials (played by Forest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbarg,
respectively) stand in her way or won’t listen to her conclusions. We are with
her every step of the way, even if we don’t know what it all means.
Even though Arrival
does not go out of its way to simplify or explain itself, it never becomes
inaccessible and only becomes more intriguing and entertaining as the story
unfolds. Did I understand the intricacies and logic of Arrival’s climax? I think so. Regardless, I understood what was
happening well enough to be thoroughly satisfied and moved emotionally. The
Oscar nominated cinematography by Bradford Young and score by Johann Johannsson
contribute greatly to the movie’s tone and along with skillful direction by Denis Villeneuve, a smart screenplay by Eric Heisserer, and, perhaps most of all, an
amazing performance by Amy Adams elevate Arrival
from just another science fiction film to something profoundly affecting.
Nominees: Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, Aaron Ryder, David Linde, producers
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Screenplay: Eric Heisserer, based on the story “The Story of
Your Life” by Ted Chiang
Cast: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker
Production Companies: Lava Bear Films, 21 Laps
Entertainment, FilmNation Entertainment
Distributor: Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Releasing
Release Date: November 11th, 2016
Total Nominations: 8, including Best Picture
Other Nominations: Director- Denis Villeneuve, Adapted
Screenplay-Eric Heisserer, Cinematography-Bradford Young, Editing-Joe Walker,
Sound Mixing- Bernard Gariépy Strobl, Claude La Haye, Sound Editing- Sylvain
Bellemare, Production Design- Patrice Vermette (production design) Paul Hotte
(set decoration)
No comments:
Post a Comment