Rating: 👽👽👽👽👽

Storytelling allows us to explore existential questions that shed light on human nature. Arrival—a gorgeous film adaptation of Ted Chiang’s novella “Story of Your Life”—uses the familiar science fiction premise of extraterrestrial visitors to show us how we, as a species, greet the unknown.

Dr. Louise Banks is a linguistics expert tasked with finding out why beings from beyond this world have arrived on our doorstep. She is initially presented with a recording of these beings expressing something in their language, but audio alone can’t convey environmental context or a basic understanding of how their species approaches language more generally. She will need to go directly to the source.

Before any of the story’s science fiction elements are introduced, we’re shown a heartbreaking montage in which Louise’s daughter passes away. Her narration—addressed to both the audience and her daughter—tells us that memory is strange and that “we are so bound by time.” This foreshadows her complex and transformative journey.

Based on the scenes in the opening montage, the viewer meets Louise as someone presumably experiencing profound grief. This adds emotional weight to the scenes during which she accepts her daunting mission. It’s easy to associate her reclusive tendencies and protective stance with tremendous loss, but they could also characterize anyone searching for a deeper sense of meaning. In the middle of the night, Louise is picked up by a helicopter and taken to one of twelve unidentified objects that have appeared in our atmosphere. This is where she will attempt to bridge the communicative gap between two distinct worlds.

As Louise approaches the military site where she will do her work, a stunning tracking shot slowly reveals one of the unidentified objects floating just above a vast landscape. The assembly of human personnel in nearby tents is dwarfed by the mystery hovering above. This film is transportive in that it makes familiar spaces feel otherworldly. When we eventually meet the visitors from beyond—referred to as heptapods because they have seven limbs—their movements and setting feel oddly grounded within the singular atmosphere the film has created.

A particularly beautiful aspect of this story is its emphasis on human beings working together. Louise partners with a physicist named Ian Donnelly who introduces himself by debating whether the cornerstone of civilization is language or science. She wrote a paper proposing that it’s the former, but she also says that such a premise is designed to “dazzle them with the basics.” Her proposal is that they talk to these beings before throwing math problems at them, an idea with which Ian immediately agrees.

Louise and Ian treat each other as intellectual equals with valuable perspectives. Their relationship models a pathway for making true explorative progress by embracing a diversity of perspectives. Respectful debate and adherence to a common set of facts are essential foundations for solving problems. Our insecurities can be weaponized when we stick to easy answers. We must be willing to experience discomfort to make meaningful change happen.

Unfortunately, our world isn’t built on shared knowledge and intellectual exploration. It’s built on borders, secrets, and military firepower. Louise finds herself constantly at odds with a colonel hesitant to teach a perceived enemy how to speak and read. His job is to get the approval of “a room full of men” whose primary question is “How can this be used against us?” For those in power, Louise’s value is transactional rather than observational.

Even though Louse is brought in as a means to an end, she has no choice in what it takes to be true to her work. Complete vulnerability is the only way through. At one point, she asks “Am I the only one having trouble saying ‘aliens?’” because she insists on meeting her teachers at their level. She eventually feels more connected to the heptapods than to other scientists around the world with whom she is sharing information virtually.

In Ted Chiang’s novella, the character that inspired the film version of Louise explains “The videoconferencing made for an incongruous working environment; our video screens were primitive compared to the heptapods’ looking glasses, so that my colleagues seemed more remote... The familiar was away, while the bizarre was close at hand.” This reinforces the value of interpersonal relationships and empathy as well as the dangers of limiting meaningful connection with others. We can be open to so much more than we realize.

While Louise learns more than she could have ever imagined, the world falls into disarray. A cult decides to “follow the lamb” in “12 sets of 12” after interpreting the arrival of the heptapods as an apocalyptic prophecy fulfilled. 800,000 people march on Washington to protest the government’s mishandling of things. A conservative pundit’s fearmongering compels two soldiers on Louise’s team to plant an explosive device in close proximity to the heptapods. This ends up directly threatening Louise and Ian until they are saved at the last minute by the graceful actions of the heptapods themselves. It turns out that, as a species, human beings are prone to fear and frustratingly predictable.

As Louise develops fluency in the heptapods’ languages—they have one for speaking and one for writing—it changes the way she experiences time. She is eventually able to see her entire future and feel things she has yet to experience. This pivotal moment in the story makes her a messenger for something human beings aren’t able to understand. Before she fully understands it herself, the heptapods explain it by saying “Offer weapon.” Even though Louise says this could mean many things, it’s taken as a green light for an act of war by the men with the bombs.

One character particularly inclined toward a hostile approach says “We’re a world with no single leader. It’s impossible to deal with just one of us. With the word weapon now…” The faintest sign of potential hostility is taken as permission to attack. The history of human violence—”like the “British with India” or the “Germans with Rwanda”—is referenced as the model to follow. This rule-or-be-ruled approach becomes the status quo among the world’s military leaders with alarming speed. Louise asks that everyone talk to each other precisely when they begin arming themselves and keeping secrets. The word “weapon” has a very specific meaning in our world, especially when it is being said by the side of the argument that is misunderstood.

Louise soon learns that “Offer weapon” is a confirmation that she can now experience time in a nonlinear fashion. The structure and tone of the film’s first act convinces us that she lost her daughter prior to what we’re seeing unfold, but it turns out that this child is one she will have in the future after falling in love with Ian. Dreams and flashes that become more common in the film’s second act are actually visions of what Louise’s life story has yet to bring. Her newfound clarity also shows her how to save humanity in the present so that Earth can help the heptapods in 3,000 years’ time.

After the present-day tension is resolved, the overwhelming knowledge of her life story compels Louise to ask Ian “If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?” He, of course, doesn’t know what she knows when she asks him this question. He is unaware that they will have a child together and that he will eventually leave when she tells him exactly how that child will die. In the present moment, his response is ““Maybe I’d say what I feel more often. I... I don’t know.” Perhaps that’s what any of us would do.

Louise embraces Ian and says “I forgot how good it felt to be held by you.” This seems like a remarkable thing to say immediately after discovering romantic attraction toward someone, but a nonlinear experience of time would condense entire relationships into mere moments. We’re probably meant to interpret that Louise can make different choices if she wants to, but this current chain of events is the one in which humanity and the heptapods are saved. She will take on tremendous pain and sacrifice so that all life on Earth can have a chance at a better future.

The idea of language changing how we experience time is a compelling metaphor. Empathizing with those different from us and communicating on their terms brings wisdom that would be intangible at a distance. Interestingly enough, the big question Louise is originally recruited to ask the heptapods—”Why are you here?”—is something most people never answer for themselves.

The heptapods tell Louise that each of the twelve unidentified objects is “one of many.” Similarly, we can choose to look at our lives as small parts of a larger whole. Would we intentionally play our part in a story that stretches as many as 3,000 years into the future? It’s exactly what we may need to do to save our species. As Louise and her daughter discuss at one point during the film, sustainable survival is a “non-zero-sum game.” We can’t exclusively derive power from withholding knowledge and resources. These things are gifts that can help us face the unknown together. In the end, we must find meaning in each other.

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