Movie Poster

We're so bounded by time, by its order. But now I am not so sure I believe in beginnings and endings.

Past Villeneuve review:

• Sicario (2015)

# Review

This movie is the dramatization of the short story Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang; in the movie, alien "heptapods" visit Earth and linguist Louise Banks is recruited to communicate with the aliens.

At the core of the story is the idea of language, and how it can be used to influence our thinking. The film refers to ideas such as linguistic relativity, which is a controversial principle that suggests an individual's perceptions and worldviews are influenced by the structure of their language. The film takes it to a whole new level and suggests that there exists a language which allows its "speakers" to develop new perceptions of reality. This idea really appeals to me as someone who programs, because the language I code in affects the way I code because I have to think in said programming language. I'm wondering, with the development of programming languages, whether it's possible to design a language which helps one code better, or think about math in a new way. I think studying how programming languages affect how one thinks about and approaches problems is an interesting topic worthy of additional study.

The film also covers other themes such as free will (to what extent can we determine our fate) as well as love, in particular unconditional love (agape). Amy Adams is amazing in this movie and the music by Jóhann Jóhannsson and Max Richter fit the movie extremely well.

Unlike typical science fiction movies about aliens visiting Earth, with large-scale action sequences and special effects, the atmosphere of this movie is calm and serene but with a surreal element. The special effects are tastefully and expertly used. After reading the book, I was pleasantly surprised that the artists nailed the look of the heptapods in the film; they were exactly how I envisioned them to look in the book.

# Conclusion

An calm science ficiton movie exploring interesting topics.

# Overall rating: 8.5

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