Arrival

 

Arrival

 I had not seen Arrival since I first watched it in 2017. In the meantime, I have read the short story that the movie is adapted from, Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life (from Stories of your life and others) and since my wife and I were looking for movies for grown-ups we could watch with our 13 year old, we felt that Arrival fit the bill. It was a bit weird for me, having reviewed the short story last year based on a movie first seen in 2017, and I felt the emotional impact of the short story was more powerful. But having now seen the movie again, I'm not so sure. I understand the need for the military sub-plot, because the timeline of the short story is distended and lacks a certain sense of grandeur, being all focused on the personal drama. I also find that the impact is more powerful than what I remembered, with subtle differences. The only (very slight) gripe I have with the adaptation is that the resolution of the Chinese subplot feels a bit too contrived. Still, one of the best scifi movies in the last couple of decades by a mile, and as my son rightly pointed out, finally a scifi movie about soft sciences.