‘Annihilation’ Review: Thoughtful and Totally Bonkers Sci-Fi Greatness

The following review of Annihilation is as a movie only. I have not read the book, nor have I read anything about the book. This is a review of the film on its own merits, and my opinion has not been polluted by the previously published material…. SO THERE.

Also note that I cannot really review this movie without revealing some of the inciting incidents that get the film going. So I’ve barricaded the synopsis with asterisks so you can avoid it should you wish to do so.

It’s really hard to make good sci-fi that doesn’t devolve into the same old plotlines, themes, and rote action sequences that we’ve seen for decades at this point. My hope in the genre started to be renewed with 2014’s Bong Joon Ho thriller Snowpiercer, which is still criminally under-seen by most. It took the popular dystopian future setting, and still gave us something truly original, gritty, and thought-provoking in what’s essentially an endless train ride standing in for a commentary on class. Then, in 2016, we were blessed with Denis Villenueve’s brilliant and emotionally gut-punching sci-fi opus Arrival, which took your standard “aliens have arrived from outer space and the military is freaking out and being somewhat unreasonable” trope and delivered – not only some breathtaking creature design – but themes of loss, communication, and fear of the unknown (whether that be aliens or our own future) that linger well after the film is over. I’ve seen Arrival three times, and every time, I’m in awe of how big-hearted this film is , without ever descending into sappiness. And I cry every time. Obviously, I should take a break from watching it if I want to retain any semblance of emotional stability to the outside world.

And that brings us to Alex Garland’s Annihilation, which despite its early 2018 release date (traditionally the harbinger of a shitty movie to come), joins the ranks of some of the best sci-fi I’ve seen in the past decade with its relentless yet quiet intensity, its creation of a truly bizarre and intriguing setting for our protagonists, its looming sense of dread, its sparing use of action, and its sharp character focus.

And holy shit, this movie gets really fucking weird, but it’s FANTASTIC weird.

SYNOPSIS******
The movie begins with a meteor hitting a lighthouse, which results in this wavering, liquidy, rainbow-like force field that begins to grow around it (that will later be called “The Shimmer”). Then we meet Lena (Natalie Portman, who’s sitting in a sterile room being interrogated by a scientist, Lomax (Benedict Wong) in a protective suit, while a team of other scientists quietly observe behind a wall of glass. She’s apparently the sole survivor of a mission gone horribly wrong, and we’re offered only subtle hints of what this mission could be. Lena is unable to tell Lomax how long she was “inside” with any certainty, nor and what happened to some of her comrades, while is able to confirm that a couple of them died.

We then cut to flashback, where we learn that Lena, sometime previous to this, was mourning the loss of her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac), who died on a covert mission that she knew very few details about. Quite abruptly, though, he reappears, and despite her elation that her husband is back, it’s quickly replaced by an overwhelming unease when he doesn’t express any emotion, is unable to tell her anything about the mission, what happened, or how he even got back to her. Seeing a theme? Good. Before we know it, he begins to have something resembling a violent seizure, but before Lena can get him to a hospital, they are intercepted by the military who take her and him into custody. It’s while she’s being held at their facility where she finally begins to get answers about Kane’s covert mission into The Shimmer, and how he is the only person to emerge from it. In an effort to find a way to save her husband’s life, she volunteers to go into The Shimmer with a ragtag team of strong, smart, and broken women that includes: Anya (Gina Rodriguez), a charismatic paramedic and military roughneck; Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a stoic and aloof psychologist who has the most intel on the missions into The Shimmer; Cass Sheppard (Tuva Novotny), a somewhat maternal and soft-spoken scientist; and Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson), a shy but brilliant physicist. All of these women are “damaged goods” in some way, which slowly gets revealed as they descend further into this beautiful yet terrifying environment enveloped by The Shimmer.

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Alex Garland takes the same subtle ferocity (yes, that’s a thing) and anxiety that he brought to his stellar Ex Machina front and center to Annihilation, and even after just two directorial entries to his resume, I have to believe that this is just his signature. While many filmmakers rely on guns, explosions, and gross creature stunts and theatrics, Garland is able to scare us even more capably by his adept use of space and silence. To be sure, there are guns and some of your standard sci-fi frights thrown into the mix (and when they do happen, they’re straight-up gasp-inducing), but his skill is in being able to bear-hug our attention close and make our pulses race even in those moments where not a ton is happening. He, along with production designer Mark Digby, his team of art directors, and cinematographer Rob Hardy (who also worked on Ex Machina) have created a setting in The Shimmer that’s at once peculiar, horrifying, gorgeous, and elusive, which helps to place us smack dab in the shoes of these four brave women, whether we want to be there or not.

And we can’t shower the appropriate accolades upon this movie without discussing how much Natalie Portman and the rest of the actresses in this film demonstrate the type of female heroism that is sorely lacking in film today. At first, I had a hard time buying that Portman, with her delicate features and even more delicate frame, could pass as someone who was ever in the Army for seven years, but whatever she doesn’t have in sheer physicality is replaced by a determination and directness that makes it more than believable. There are also layers of vulnerability and regret laced into her performance that make Lena both complex and relatable, making us want to continue this journey with her to see how she comes out on the other end of it. It made me recall Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley in Aliens, and if you know anything about my love for that film, you would know there is basically no higher compliment. Jennifer Jason Leigh – who I was over the moon to see on the big screen again – also brings the goods as the incredibly cryptic, emotionally detached psychologist who seems to be a vault of dark secrets and existential thoughts. From the way she moves, and the methodical way in which she speaks, you can tell this is a woman in total isolation both physically and emotionally, and Leigh totally nails her ominous vibe in spades. Rodriguez, Thompson, and Novotny also fill out their varying roles with compassion, intelligence, and force (when needed), making this a well-rounded and complex team of women that we’re engaged to keep watching and care about.

Oscar Isaac (also a veteran of Ex Machina) has less to do here, but as always, he commands the screen, even when his character’s face seems completely sucked of all emotion or soul. Even in his comparatively limited screen time, his performance helps to bring a weightiness to the proceedings from the start, and increases the sense of impending danger.

I’m really glad that I am committed to being pretty spoiler-free, because if I had to describe some of the stranger points in the film, my description would do a huge disservice to what you eventually see on the screen. And it’s some of those inexplicable moments that make this a fantastic treat for sci-fi fans. I actually love that I can’t explain some of it, because that seems more true to what would actually happen if extraterrestrial phenomena were discovered by us, rather than your traditional good vs. evil storylines that reduce films to allegories for the wars we see in everyday life. There’s a tendency to treat aliens as aggravated invaders that we have to overcome – something that’s easily explained by our own experience with war and fear of people from foreign lands. But what’s more possible is that we would not know the “why” behind something like this happening, and we would definitely not be able to explain it right off the bat. I love that this film makes no attempts to answer all of our questions, and that Garland allows us to explore alongside these women, and to be confused and uncertain, just like them. It lends to the sense of wonder and terror that would accompany any kind of real “invasion” (if that’s even the right word) should that ever actually happen. Some things just ARE, even though that can be unsatisfying in our quest to know all the answers to why freaking weird things just happen.

Verdict: So with that, if you are the type of person who needs even your most mind-bendy sci-fi film to have tidy answers by the end, Annihilation might not be for you. But if you are the type of fan that can appreciate the wonder in the uncertainty, then get yourself to a theater immediately, let yourself be genuinely affected by this film, and spread the word.