- There are countless movies out there about hostile aliens, invaders from Mars, and misunderstood extraterrestrials, but Annihilation is one of the first to ask the more interesting question: What if an alien incursion just doesn't make any sense? I've always been skeptical of Arthur C. Clarke's so-called law stating that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", but I'm plenty willing to believe that any interaction between humans and aliens would be rife with misunderstanding. Context is everything, and it's difficult to imagine what humanity would have in common with something that could survive jaunting between the stars. Maybe establishing a shimmering ecosystem that modifies life into truly bizarre forms is just its way of saying "hi"?
- We first find out about "The Shimmer," as the phenomenon is called, along with the film's protagonist, Lena (Natalie Portman). Lena's husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) has been missing for a year after embarking on a highly classified mission for the military. One day, he shows up in their house, but something is terribly wrong. He's completely withdrawn and can't even account for how or when he came back. A medical emergency suggests that bigger problems are lurking beneath the surface, and the military quickly rushes in to establish a quarentine. Tranquilized and imprisoned, Lena is first interrogated and later debriefed by a psychologist, Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who shows her the glimmering layer of alien gauze that has decided to lay claim to some oceanfront property.
- Although the film's opening title depicts some outer space object hitting a lighthouse on the coast, the fact is that nobody has any idea what is really happening with The Shimmer. Dr. Ventress' organization has sent in probes, animals, and people, but Kane was the first one to return. Their next mission involves sending in a diverse team, including an athropologist (Tuva Novotny), a paramedic (Gina Rodruguez), and a physicist (Tessa Thompson). As a biology professor with a military background, Lena makes a welcome addition to the team, and the tight-lipped Dr. Ventress insists on heading it up. The explorers seem confident enough as they march toward the boundary, despite the obvious possibility that they might not return. As the anthropologist later notes, "volunteering for...this is not exactly something you do if your life is in perfect harmony."
- I had my doubts that any movie would be able to capture the abstract weirdness of The Shimmer as half-described in the source novel by Jeff Vandermeer, but director Alex Garland and his filmmaking team do as good a job as could be imagined. Much like Lena's husband Kane, everything just seems a little off. Rainbows and spikes of light appear where they shouldn't. Alligators have shark teeth, and trees grow up to emulate human forms. (Don't even ask about the bears.) As the physicist notes, it's as though everything inside The Shimmer has been refracted through some reality-altering prism. Slowly the team pieces together clues left by previous explorers, including Kane. Although the film contains many harrowing scenes, the most cringe-inducing involves found footage of some largely inexplicable surgery. Dr. Ventress has speculated that previous teams were either killed by what was inside The Shimmer or went crazy and killed each other. It begins to look like both options are in play.
- As impressive as Annihilation's indelible visuals are, its rich soundscape is just as remarkable. The surface of the Shimmer crashes like a thunderstorm and cracks like fracturing glaciers. Plaintive guitar music plays like a sad dirge for humanity. The familiar strains of Crosby, Stills, and Nash's "Helplessly Hoping" echo Lena's struggles in letting go of Kane. And then there's that famous "Annihilation noise" that gets trotted out when Lena struggles (in a very literal sense) with the film's fascinating theme of involuntary self-destruction. Between this and Ex Machina, Alex Garland may be my new favorite working sci-fi auteur. Several reviewers have described Annihilation as something of a Tarkovsky film knockoff, but personally I would have used the term "improvement." I hope Garland continues to be more successful than the characters in his films.
- Also featuring Benedict Wong, Sonoya Mizuno, and David Gyasi.
