The Circle of Life

I can’t bring myself to discuss the elephant in the room tonight, so I’ll just change the subject. On Monday night, Election Day eve, sort of speak, Joanie and I went to see the new science fiction movie “Arrival”. Anne was too caught up in her Election Judge responsibilities to accompany us. This was another one of those sneak peek opportunities from Science on Tap, like “The Space Between Us”, which we had seen the week before. Unlike that movie, “Arrival” was really good and I highly recommend it. It is currently batting 98% on the old Tomato-meter. The movie stars Amy Adams, who is terrific, as Dr. Louise Banks, a world-renowned linguist and costars Jeremy Renner as her partner, physicist Ian Donnelly and Forest Whitaker as head honcho Colonel Weber. Adams look like a likely Oscar nominee for best actress for her subtle, understated performance.

Twelve UFOs appear around the world and Louise and Ian are tasked to make contact with the one hovering over Montana. Stylishly attired in orange hazmat suits the pair enter the UFO via a scissors-lift, where they meet the octopus like aliens. Deciding that talking to them would be too difficult, whiteboard in hand, Louise resorts to the written word. The aliens respond with their own inkjet squirted script, which resembles a cross between beer glass water rings and a Rorschach test. The dynamic duo is then off to the races. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is going crazy. Around the world, we are left with a horserace. Will Louise and Ian figure out why the aliens came to Earth, before Earth declares war on them? The movie is way more cerebral than my little tongue-in-cheek synopsis does it justice. “Arrival” is the kind of meaty science fiction that really makes you think and still think well of your race.