“There are days that define your story beyond your life.”
Join Ian & Liam as we stare nervously at twelve enormous objects hovering above the Earth, attempt to communicate using increasingly complicated circles and ask whether knowing what comes next would actually change anything in Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016).
Megs isn’t with us this week — she heard somebody say “non-linear perception of time” and decided she suddenly had somewhere else to be.
Kev was absolutely going to join us, but unfortunately we’ve already seen the future and apparently he doesn’t.
We’re also joined for the Endgame by the one, the only, Duane Smith — Duane Smith! — before a very special phone-in guest makes an appearance later in the show.
This week we discuss:
Is Arrival actually an alien movie or a film about grief? Both stories are sitting right beside each other — but which one did we actually prefer?
What does Denis Villeneuve bring to the table? Scale, atmosphere, restraint and an almost unnerving confidence in letting an audience catch up.
Is Amy Adams the female Matt Damon? Ian presents his case. Liam is forced to hear it.
Louise Banks as the centre of the film. With so much enormous stuff happening around her, why does Arrival remain such an intimate movie?
The language of the Heptapods. Is learning to communicate the film’s most interesting idea — or merely the route towards something much bigger?
That narrative reveal. Once we understand what the film has actually been showing us, does everything before it become richer?
And does knowing the trick change subsequent viewings? Is Arrival improved by knowing where it’s going, or does something inevitably disappear once the mystery is gone?
Why did Duane Smith — Duane Smith! — choose Arrival? We finally get the story behind his selection.
The Age Game with Duane Smith — Duane Smith! Which surely represents the natural culmination of everything the Age Game has been building towards.
A special guest phones in. And suddenly Ian and Liam aren’t the only people with opinions.
What social event do Ian, Liam and Duane commit themselves to? A promise is made on microphone, meaning it is now legally binding in the BFE universe.
Amy Adams and the absence of an Oscar nomination. We have questions.
Jeremy Renner. Is Ian Donnelly an essential part of the emotional equation, or is he trapped slightly in Louise’s gravitational pull?
Would you make the same choice? Once Arrival reveals the real question it has been asking, the aliens almost become secondary.
And finally, whether Arrival is the Best Film Ever — a cerebral science-fiction film about first contact, or an extraordinarily human film about choosing love even when you already know how much it is going to hurt.
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