Year: 2018
Director: Alex Garland
Natalie Portman’s Lena is a college biology professor whose soldier husband Kane (played by Oscar Isaac) disappeared, presumed killed, on his last secret mission. She’s stuck in grief and refuses to move on. And then, one day, he mysteriously returns. But he’s different, with no memory of what’s happened to him. His health rapidly deteriorates, and he is rushed to a military compound where Lena discovers that he was a part of a Special Forces-esque team sent to investigate the location of a meteor crash in the Florida swampland. The region has been enveloped in “Shimmer”, a mysterious effect that is changing the land under it, and one that is slowly expanding outwards. Kane is the only person from several expeditions who has returned from this location, now known as Area X.
Desperate to know what has happened to her husband, Lena volunteers to join up, and is assigned the next mission, heading into the unknown with a team of scientists, whereupon Annihilation reveals itself as the psychedelic Alien. This small group of explorers stumbling into something huge, unknown, and lethal has the same sense of nature and biology frighteningly out of kilter, but in a much more flamboyant and colourful way. The imagery throughout the infected zone is astonishing and often beautiful. It’s verging on spoilers to describe anything in much detail (although the cries of the bear will stay with you for a long time, believe me), but I can promise you it’s a hallucinatory voyage that makes the toddle up the Mekong in Apocalypse Now look like a trip to the corner shop. The climax, as Lena makes it all the way into the heart of Area X, becomes a cosmic communion like the end of 2001. Even some slightly flaky CGI works, helping to create the sense of not-quite-right artificiality that the film is soaked with, from the lighting and film stock upwards. A genuine Uncanny Valley, in so many senses of the phrase.
It’s not an easy film. There’s no happy ending, no explanations, no one to root for. But there’s thought, imagination and vision evident in every frame. Simultaneously distancing and involving, it’s one of the most unsettlingly brilliant movies I’ve seen in a long time, and proof that along with Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, we might be living in a golden age for cinematic SF.
This should be one of those films that is talked about in a decades time as a classic. It should also really be seen on a big screen, but you won’t be doing that, I’m afraid. Thanks to a studio and financier scared that their movie was too intellectual and too complicated, it’s been sent to Netflix, with no cinema release over here. Sigh. Prove them wrong. Watch it.
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
the other films I’ve mentioned, Alex Garland’s previous move Ex Machina
something going bump in the night
Sounds like a cracker. You have definitely got me interested, albeit upset that it is only available on Netflix.
It is a sham when Netflix buy up a film that is clearly screaming for a big screen release.
Interesting to see how Garland has gone from novelist to screenwriter to director.
The financial backers of the film looked at the reaction to early screenings in the US and thought “this film is too difficult (?) to be successful”. Hence a phone call to Netflix “make us an offer”.
I’ve read the book of this! It was a great book, if a little elliptical. Interested to see this.
Must see this. I adored Ex Machina. Don’t understand the love for Arrival though. I found it boring and very, very, very silly.
Just watched it. I’m not normally a fan of movies in which big fuckoff *spoiler alerts* suddenly leap out and scare the living daylights out of you, which is why I watched most of Alien skulking in the hall peering through a crack in the door.
But I really enjoyed this. As the Kid says, it’s beautiful to look at, with plenty to engage the brain. The CGI does creak at times – the Shimmer looked rather like cunningly lit coloured cellophane, for instance – but I think that was probably deliberate. Overall, cinema’s loss is Netflix’s gain – and you can hardly blame them for grabbing it with both hands when it was offered to them.
Jesus, what did they do? Measure the average IQ of a Trump voter, look at the film and decide it was too hard for simpletons to digest? How many different ways can the Americans make themselves look thick this year?
Saw it last night. I didn’t hate it, but I was very disappointed overall. Mainly, I think, because it’s a bit of a mess: jarring tonal shifts, bad pacing, poorly drawn characters, terrible effects, needlessly complicated structure. I’m annoyed at the waste of the all-female science team as well. In the book they’re initially intrigued and fascinated by what they discover. Here, they just freak right off the bat.
You say bugs, I say features – to my mind, things like the tonal shifts, effects and unconventional pacing all contribute to the alien, something’s not right here, nature of Area X. But each to their own and all that. I watched it twice in three days, and still love it.
I’m agree with the Bangster. I thought it was ok, a decent evening’s entertainment, but nothing special at all. Pretty to look at in parts, bit silly in others, not in the same league as Ex Machina.
Watched this twice over the last few weeks, once alone and then as a recommendation to watch with my wife. Loved it, and if this is representative of the straight to Netflix film brand, then there’s much to be, er, optimistic about.
I loved the way the film was carefully structured and edited to reveal new and intricate layers, as the main action unfolded. There were some wonderful ideas and visionary landscapes, and the film developed a masterful hallucinatory quality during its long, vivid, wordless sequences. You can see why Hollywood didn’t like it, but that’s more a reflection of Hollywood’s increasingly chronic risk aversion than anything else. In it’s remote, visual tone, it reminded me a bit of Malick’s The Thin Red Line. The music was ominous and outstanding.
I’m not sure I’d rate it a classic. The main characters are poorly developed (perhaps an inevitable consequence of a film that is primarily visual), and the film occasionally wanders into horror movie cliche. But overall, I found this to be a beautiful, ambitious film that leaves a lasting impression. Thanks for recommending it.