Arrival

Arrival, starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, will not be everyone’s cup of tea.  In a sea of  super hero and action movies, it is relatively subdued and almost quiet in tone.  The story involves some unnamed aliens who come to earth and stay put in their impenetrable spaceships.  We don’t know their language and they do not know ours.  Do they come in peace?  Are they here to invade us?  We don’t know because we can not understand each other.  This is where Amy Adams comes in.  Her character is a language expert and she has been tasked with figuring out how to communicate with these potential invaders.  Jeremy Renner is the scientist who has been assigned to help her. What I didn’t expect was an Inception-like ending.  When the movie is over, you will be wondering, what just happened here?  If you have been reading my reviews these past 8 months, you know I love movies that make me think or leave me wondering.  Arrival does just that.  With all the political overtones of the past election, this movie also gives me hope for the future – these days,  a rare and welcome  distraction indeed.