Arrival

Oscar nominee Amy Adams stars in Denis Villeneuve’s wondrous, mind-bending sci-fi. 

Linguistics professor Louise Banks (Adams) leads an elite team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down in 12 locations around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew race against time to find a way to communicate with their alien visitors. Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life – and quite possibly all of mankind. 

Staff pick

Our team is sharing the films they love so you can enjoy them on the big screen.

"We love Arrival in the Music Centre and when discussing favourite movies, this one topped the list. Despite having seen it multiple times each, neither of us have ever seen it on the big screen and were really pleased when it was chosen as the Staff Pick for February.

Arrival is not your typical alien invasion blockbuster. It’s a mind-bending meditation on love, time and language that draws us into breathtaking encounters with the unfamiliar. I continue to connect with this film through the way it beautifully situates grief and tragedy within the context of a meaningful life, showing us how to reject defensive terror in favour of a compassionately curious approach to the unknown. Arrival explores what it means not simply to accept the incurable circumstances of our fate, but actually to choose them, and in doing so to expand our way of being in reality. It encapsulates everything that good sci-fi can do: it is political, poetic, philosophical, futuristic and emotionally intelligent all at the same time. 

Part of what makes it such a great film is Jóhann Jóhannsson’s beautiful soundtrack which underpins the time-bending narrative. Jóhannsson’s use of sounds and instruments manipulated in various ways straddles the familiar and the unknown. Slowed down tape loops of piano notes, extended vocal techniques and electronically processed recordings of everyday objects weave an underlying sense of threat and awe into the onscreen imagery. A bitter-sweet sensation which mirrors the journey of Amy Adam’s Louise and her relationship with the alien visitors."

Charlotte and Chris, Music Centre