Arrival (2016)

So I thought the pacing of this movie was pretty damn good. Structure as well. I like that they played with your expectations regarding the fairly well trod trope of using experiences from your past to help you in the present (Slumdog Millionaire is the first movie that comes to mind but I know there are plenty of others that have done this). So it was easy to assume everything with the daughter was flashbacks.

I also enjoyed that everything wasn't spoonfed to the viewers. After the bomb and the firefight between the rogue soldiers, we move on, no need for exposition that wraps up what happened in a nice bow. I'm sure there were some casualties and either those rogue soldiers were killed or arrested.

I liked that they showed the initial and gradual process of learning and communicating with the aliens and then bridged it with a montage to show the progress they've made. I'm aware montages are nothing new but I think it was well placed in the film.

As the movie progressed, I started to get a sick feeling that this was going to be similar to Interstellar and the aliens were gonna be the dead daughter communicating with the mother.

I know everyone got the "twist" (it's not really a twist IMO) at a different point in time. They didn't really hide it, in the opening scene Amy Adams is discussing beginnings and endings. But anyway, the clincher for me was when they were discussing non zero sum-game, and the flashforward to talking with her daughter and she responds "if you want science, talk to your father." That's when I pieced together that all the events with her daughter happened after the contact with the aliens and learning their language, because I realized Renner was her future husband.

Are there plotholes in this movie? I'm sure there are. But as far as paradoxes go in "time-travel" movies (although this isn't really time-travel, only in Amy Adams memories) this is fairly straightforward IMO. Once I mulled over the whole satelitte phone/Chinese general sequence for awhile I think I have a grasp on it.

The whole "we will need the humans help in 3000 years" I'm still unclear on though.

Overall a very good movie and it brings up interesting questions too.

As someone who lost a child some ten years ago (albeit under completely different circumstances), I found the mother/daughter part of the story very powerful, as did my wife.  And of course the most powerful part is at the end, when you learn that she had the choice to have or not have her daughter despite the consequences for her entire family, and she chose to go through with it.

What really makes me even more sad is thinking about how she also realizes that if she goes through with this, she will lose everything. Her daughter will die and her husband will leave her. She will be utterly alone. But she still goes through with it because the memories that she can build with her daughter are worth the pain that will come with her death. It is crazy how emotional this film was. It's probably tied with La La Land as my favorite movie of the year.

I loved it. My wife and I watched it last night just after some house guests left. The house guests lost a child to cancer a few years back. So it was hard to not have them in mind while watching. I would not be surprised if it was written as a sort of catharsis for someone who had experienced such tragedy. This is my kind of sci-fi. I loved that in the end we are left thinking about our own lives and whether you'd do it all again knowing both the joy and the heartache. I know our house guest friends certainly would. Sorry for your loss, Frink. 

I think the moment this really went beyond phenomenal was when Abbot and Costello save Louise and Ian. They knew there was a weapon. They knew Costello would die, and yet they chose to arrive. When the ending scenes finally play out, it's beautiful poetry in the choice she makes/made/is making. Just an incredible analysis of choice that really hits home.