Don your deerstalker, swish your tweed cape and take a long, slow contemplative puff of your calabash pipe, for Arrival by Sicario director Denis Villeneuve and Lights Out screenwriter Eric Heisserer will require you to draw upon all of your Sherlockian powers of deduction to answer the main question posed by linguist Dr Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and astrophysicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) to two extraterrestrial beings who have arrived in one of twelve unidentified flying objects: “What is your purpose here on Earth?” The last time I did this much head-scratching was when Craig Levein picked a 6-4-0 formation against the Czech Republic!

Yes, there are otherworldly aliens, which resemble giant octopuses with rhinoceros hinds. Yes, there are gargantuan space crafts, which defy gravity and drop jaws. And, yes, the future of humanity is at stake. But like most of the acclaimed sci-fi films of recent years (think Interstellar, Moon and even Wall-E ), Arrival is more concerned with the internal than the external, emotional depth than shallow effects, life on the here-and-now Earth than in the there-and-then Space. One of the main themes of which is crystallised in a brief exchange towards the end of the film when Dr Banks asks her colleague Ian Donnelly, “If you could see your whole life, from start to finish, would you change things?” To which he replies, “I would say how I feel more often.”

For those with an attention span of a gnat, Arrival might spark a rush to the exit. For nothing is given to you on a plate and you are forced to work just as hard as the protagonists to join the at times incomprehensible dots of their cryptic communications with the Heptapods. The action flits between dreams and reality, flashbacks and the future, so fast and so frequently that you would be forgiven for agreeing with Dr Banks’ assessment of her powers of recall, “Memory is a strange thing. It doesn’t work like I thought it did.” But like a fine Persian rug, the longer the film unfolds the more you appreciate its intricate beauty.

With a brooding score by Jóhann Jóhannsson who was twice-nominated for an Oscar for The Theory of Everything and Sicario; haunting cinematography from Bradford Young (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Selma), which is infused with both a dreamlike and nightmarish quality; and fine performances from Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner in the leading roles as well as Forest Whitaker as a no-nonsense colonel, Arrival which is based on a short story by American sci-fi author Ted Chiang is a gripping, accomplished and thought-provoking mystery, which, although far from elementary, would give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money.

And as much as it deals with life in space, it is the final frontier of death, which lies at its heart and packs the most powerful punch: “Despite knowing the journey and where it leads,” says Dr Banks, “I embrace it. And I welcome every moment of it.”

Video courtesy of: Paramount Pictures

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Peter Callaghan
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