Arrival

Director: Denis Villeneuve Denis Villeneuve

Overview

Denis Villeneuve directed this science-fiction suspense film about Earth's response to a possible alien invasion. After extraterrestrial spacecraft plant themselves at various locations around the globe, a linguist (Amy Adams) and a theoretical physicist (Jeremy Renner) must find a way to communicate with the mysterious visitors in order to learn what they want and whether they pose a threat to humanity. Forest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbarg co-star. ~ Violet LeVoit

Product Details

Release Date:	02/14/2017
UPC:	0032429263445
Original Release:	2016
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	Paramount
Format:	Blu-ray

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Amy Adams	Dr. Louise Banks
Jeremy Renner	Ian Donnelly
Forest Whitaker	Colonel Weber
Michael Stuhlbarg	Agent Halpern
Mark O'Brien	Captain Marks
Tzi Ma	General Shang
Jadyn Malone	Hannah (6 yrs. old)
Abigail Pniowsky	Hannah (8 yrs. old)
Julia Scarlett Dan	Hannah (12 yrs. old)
Frank Schorpion	Dr. Kettler
Lucas Chartier-Dessert	Private Lasky
Christian Jadah	Private Combs
Lucy VanOldenbarneveld	CNAC Anchor
Andrew Shaver	Environmental Tech
Pat Kiely	Environmental Tech
Sonia Vigneault	Dr. j. Bydwell
Mark Camacho	Richard Riley
Sabrina Reeves	Press Secretary
Julian Casey	Australian Scientist
Tony Robinow	British Scientist
Larry Day	CIA Officer Dan Ryder
Matthew Willson	Preacher
Ruth Chiang	Chinese Scientist
Russell Yuen	Chinese Scientist
Sergey Marchenko	Russian Officer
Anana Rydvald	Swedish Scientist
Bineyam Girma	Sudan Representative
Abdelghafour Elaaziz	African Representative
Abdul Ayoola	Sierra Leone Representative
Alex M. Yeuh	Japanese Minister
Daniel Esteban	Venezuelan Representative
Albert Kwan	Chinese Man
Brittany Teo	Grad Student with Smartphone
Joe Cobden	Cryptographer
Lorne Brass	Cryptographer
Genevieve Sirois	Cryptographer
Victor Andres Turgeon-Trelles	Science Team Members
Michael Nangreaves	Science Team Member
Reda Guerinik	Communication Ops
Adrien Benn	Communication Ops
Sasha Samar	Communication Ops
Kathleen Stavert	Communication Ops
Kattia Thony	Communication Ops
Leisa Reid	Nurse
Brent Skagford	Nurse
Gurdeep Ahluwalia	Lieutenant
Shawn Campbell	Soldier
Brian Dunstan	TV Ancor
Dan Duran	TV Anchor
Lori Graham	TV Anchor
Orla Johannes	TV Anchor
John Moore	TV Anchor
Sangita Patel	TV Anchor
Hal Roberts	TV Anchor
Camille Ross	TV Anchor
Ola Sturik	TV Anchor
Tammie Sutherland	TV Anchor
Max Walker	TV Anchor
Marc-André Goulet	TV Anchor
Paul-Antoine Taillefer	TV Anchor
Martin Pelletier	Motion Capture Heptapod

Technical Credits

Eric Heisserer

Denis Villeneuve	Director
Renee April	Costumes/Costume Designer
Marie-Jose Bourassa	Asst. Director
Gillian Chandler	Makeup
Marc Charlebois	Camera Operator
Dan Cohen	Executive Producer
Ryal Cosgrove	Special Effects Supervisor
Kathleen Driscoll-Mohler	Casting
Pascal Elissalde	Asst. Director
Frederic Chamberland	Camera Operator
Jean Gagnon	Set Decoration/Design
Francois Grenon	Sound Mixer
Isabelle Guay	Art Director
Simon Guilbault	Set Decoration/Design
Eric Heisserer	Executive Producer,Screenwriter
Michael A. Jackman	Co-producer
Johan Johannsson	Score Composer
Claude La Haye	Sound Mixer
Dan Levin	Producer
Dan Levine	Producer
Shawn Levy	Producer
David Linde	Producer
Karen Lunder	Executive Producer
Francine Maisler	Casting
Tory Metzger	Executive Producer
Jean-Pierre Paquet	Art Director
Robert Parle	Art Director
Joan Patricia Parris	Makeup
Milan Popelka	Executive Producer
Michelle Quinn	Production Manager
Helene Ross	Production Manager
Aaron Ryder	Producer
Donald Sparks	Asst. Director
Tristan Thibaudeau	Casting
Hugues Tremblay	Camera Operator
Patrice Vermette	Production Designer
Joe Walker	Editor
Stan Wlodkowski	Executive Producer
Bradford Young	Cinematographer

Editorial Reviews

They're here, and we don't know what they want. It's the basis of so many science-fiction films fixated on the idea of extraterrestrial life. Sometimes they come to us for help, sometimes to annihilate, sometimes just to coexist. In Arrival, the cerebral and singular new movie from French-Canadian master Denis Villeneuve, perhaps they've come to hold a mirror up to humanity. Shortly after 12 monolithic spacecraft land on Earth, linguistics professor Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is approached by the U.S. military. Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) presents Banks with a recording of the alien language, and asks her to decode it and figure out why they've come to our planet. Banks is joined by mathematician Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) as they head to rural Montana -- the landing spot of one of the ships. Meanwhile, flashbacks reveal pieces of Banks' life up to this point: Her daughter died at a young age, and the resulting heartache eventually tore apart her marriage. Every 18 hours a door on the ship opens and allows the military and scientists to enter, and they soon discover that the alien visitors are towering, squid-like creatures obscured by fog in a glass enclosure. Referred to as the Heptapods, they have verbal and written means of communication -- the latter formed in disappearing ink that takes the shape of complex spheres. Banks leads the team of scientists in making contact and subsequently trying to decipher the messages. As nations across the world try to coordinate their individual findings with a global coalition, trigger fingers become antsy as some countries consider simply giving up on communication in favor of violence. The importance of Banks' own life to the movie becomes clearer as she gets closer to cracking the Heptapods' language. It seems almost imprudent to try to contextualize any more of the plot details of Arrival, which screenwriter Eric Heisserer adapted from the award-winning short-fiction piece Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. The emotional heft of the picture, which will inaccurately be dubbed a twist, builds over the course of the film as the sense of scope comes into focus along with the characters' development. Audiences have become trained to anticipate a grand reveal, particularly in modern science fiction, but Arrival skillfully subverts that trend by instead providing a coherent arc toward a moving finale. Villeneuve forgoes grandiosity in favor of simple storytelling. That's not to say that the subject matter (determinism, communication, geopolitical cooperation) is simple (quite the opposite), but that he's able to interpret a worldwide event through the lens of a personal story. It's heady, adult sci-fi dressed up as big-budget fare. In addition, the director has surrounded himself with a cast and crew at the top of their game; this is Amy Adams' finest work to date, much like Emily Blunt's performance in Villeneuve's thriller Sicario was her own personal best. Adams tackles the sadness, curiosity, and fear of her character, shining through when the film reaches its expressive climax. Bradford Young's cinematography is serene and haunting, while composer Johann Johannsson punctuates the proceedings with an emotive score. Arrival is a terrific piece of genre-melding work, an intellectually stimulating and visually entertaining journey. It's a profound ride into the unknown as well as a strikingly human film, one that's concerned much more with the feebleness of language and the fragility of time than with its mysterious extraterrestrial visitors.

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