ah, yes. meryl streep's role as "meryl streep in another mediocre dramady" was much more deserving of an oscar nomination than amy "i carried this movie on my own two shoulders" adams. because florence foster jenkins will be remembered for much longer than arrival. at least she got nominated for nocturnal animals OH WAIT

memory is a strange thing. for example, i remember amy adams's performance as being one of the best of 2016, but the academy seemed to remember differently

The ghosts of Stanley Kubrick and Michael Crichton have inhabited Denis Villeneuve's body.

more filmmakers should (follow suit and) go full Tarkovsky in wide release form. Villeneuve had already proven himself to be one of the most versatile filmmakers in the medium -- as if we needed any more proof -- and it goes without saying that Bradford Young is a complete colossus with the camera.

why didn't anybody warn me about Max Richter's On the Nature of Daylight bookending the film? I can't even listen to that piece (in absence of a heartbreaking cinematic context) without tearing up; imagine what the introductory and concluding sequences herein did to me.

if you could see beyond the boundaries of your vision and comprehend the entire vastness of your environment -- all that is before you, beside you, behind you -- would you still traverse the same trail, or would you tour time through disparate doors?

Would have given "Arrival" a full star rating if it weren't for the very american, full of cliché and anticlimax ending. The not so well conceived plotholes and paradoxes that imbued the movie didn't impress either. It's still an interesting rendering of such a classic theme "first contact with aliens". I would still, despite the ending and the plotholes, recommend it.

This is really material that's crying out for an approach that's willing to risk alienating the audience, or at the very least play around with the chronology of its narrative. It's perfectly watchable but Villeneuve strikes me as a square and literal filmmaker: all of his movies are stylish, easy to track, digestible.... so much so that I never really feel the need to see any of them more than once. Here, the impossible contours of the original short story are reduced to a straight-forward action climax that leaves the emotional fallout feeling pretty hollow. I don't even think viewers who see the end as an incomprehensible cop-out are stupid, the work just wasn't put in to make that central concept resonate.

the pacing in this film is 😙👌 exquisite i think it had no lulls or lingering moments which is not what i expected from it. i thought it was gona be slower but, it almost seemed like, in a way, each scene of had an equal allotted time. it makes it go by so fast. did amy adams deserve an academy award for this? who’s to say. really really cool story !

월

Who knew grief, science, depression, love, humanity, motherhood, and aliens could be wrapped up into this perfect, awe-inspiring work of art? A masterpiece, in every way.

Not what l was expecting but good

If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?

Amazing movie. Amy Adams was phenomenal.

Giant chocapic comes to earth to have a chat with Amy Adams and give her the power she needs to win awards