Disappointing and deceptive

nico-palou

score 5/10

I went in really wanting to like this film since I love sci-fi and i'm interested in philosophy of language. However, I was disappointed, mainly because it fails at its own game: the science is ridiculous, and so is its cheesy and simplistic anti-war message. The scene where the colonel first approaches the protagonist Louise Banks at her office was incredibly stupid and badly written:

Colonel: (out of the blue) It's been only two days

Louise: (confused)...

C: People are already demanding answers. Here, listen to this *plays audio recorder*

L: (still confused)

C: Well? Come on! What are they saying?

L: I'd have to be there; I can't translate from this.

C: You did it back then with Farsi insurgents!!

L: That's because I already knew the language (Duh!)

C: Ooohh, I see what you're trying to do here you sly girl... it's not gonna happen, this is not a negotiation!! (storms out)

WTF!

And then they land a helicopter in her backyard to pick her up (so over the top!) after they find out that the second "expert" on their list gives an "incorrect" answer to a question that doesn't make sense: "what's the Sanskrit word for 'war' and its translation?" Isn't that asking the same thing twice? In any case, this was a clumsy way of introducing the theme of miscommunication. Apparently this Berkeley scholar was not aware that a word can have different meanings in different contexts/uses.

Louise is the only real character in this film; they decided to make everyone stupid and hollow just so she could look smart and layered. She's written to be more a translator between two known languages than a linguist. They really didn't know how to show a true linguist at work, so they decided to skim through the whole deciphering process by means of a montage rather than showing her actual process, which would have been far more interesting. You could say this is a film that only features sci-fi elements as a backdrop for a drama. Well, they should have advertised it as what it is!

Renner' character doesn't behave like a scientist, he's quite ignorant and shallow (but we're supposed to think he's smart because he scribbled some unintelligible stuff on the whiteboard). The only contribution he makes is incredibly contrived and unnecessary. He's there for two reasons: 1) to give presence to natural science, providing a counterpoint to Louise who represents the social sciences, 2) a plot device for the twist ending/love interest (by the way, who bought them falling in love? Nothing throughout the movie hints at a developing relationship. The ending was so cheesy).

Then the military is a bag of clichés: stupid, impatient, and reckless. And since when a colonel and a general make all the political decisions? The whole "let's unite and cooperate" message falls flat because it was so unrealistic. The right-wing nut-jobs sub-plot felt rushed and unnecessary. It's like they're trying too hard to take a political stance against everything that Trump represents, but it comes off really heavy-handed.

I'm not even going to bother with time "travel" paradoxes and contradictions about the presence/absence of free will, because I get that this is sci-fi and the plot is supposed to serve a greater message, in this case, the moral question that Nietzsche famously once posed:

"What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sight and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence' […] If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing: 'Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?' would lie upon your actions as the heaviest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?"

There were far better ways of exploring this question.

As for the cinematography, it was unnecessarily bleak, and the only memorable piece of the score is not even original; it was written by Max Richter years ago for another film and recycled here.

nico-palou 8 March 2017

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3656891/