Movie Review: Arrival

Feb 05, 2017 09:27

I'm trying to see a bunch of the Oscar noms before the big day, so I saw this a few days ago ( Read more... )

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carlyinrome February 5 2017, 15:46:24 UTC

Perhaps it's too late, but Regal Cinemas has a special Academy Awards promotion: you pay $35, and you have a pass to see every Best Picture nominee, and for each movie you get a coupon for a $5 medium popcorn/soft drink combo.

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a2zmom February 5 2017, 15:48:40 UTC
My theater has something similar - they show all the best picture nominees over a single weekend. That is just too long for my butt to be sitting!

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carlyinrome February 5 2017, 17:49:19 UTC
I think this is over two weeks, but yeah, it's going to take some strategic scheduling on my part.

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mamculuna February 5 2017, 17:37:28 UTC
Wish I could remember that LJ code that makes spoilery comments not show up unless you mouse over them--I have thoughts about this movie!

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a2zmom February 5 2017, 18:14:29 UTC


Please, I am eager to hear your thoughts!

lj-spoiler - surround with <>, type your test and then end with /lj-spoiler

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mamculuna February 5 2017, 18:23:02 UTC
[Spoiler (click to open)]I realized in a conversation with someone that many people are viewing the main character's visions as memories, but they aren't--they're visions of the future. Learning the alien's language freed her from being bound in time, so she's able to foresee what's going to happen. The father of the little girl who dies is the guy she's working with and just getting together with during the alien visit, and he's the one who leaves when she tells him that the child will die. This means that a big theme in the movie is whether we have free will if we know what's going to happen--is choice bound up with our limited existence in the temporal stream? That's also how she's able to get the "last words" from the Chinese PM that lets her get him to change course when the aliens are there. Maybe all this is exactly what you were talking about! But I just wanted to say it because so many people seem to be seeing those visions as memories. Let know if this doesn't work! The way I did it was to put the < around the first lj-spoiler and type the text ( ... )

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a2zmom February 5 2017, 18:45:38 UTC
It did work and yes, all of that was obvious to me.

[Spoiler (click to open)]I don't think free will is gone. First. she's the only one on earth with this ability because learning their language rewired her brain.

Secondly, she chooses to have her daughter, even knowing what is to come. She could have gone a different direction I believe, but she choose not to. That's why he leaves her - he literally says "you choose wrong".

And that's the real crux of it - did she choose wrong? She knows her daughter will die and her husband will leave her, yet she does it anyway, cherishing the happiness she will have, even briefly over the eventual pain.

Was she given a gift? The aliens think so, but I'm not sure.

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