Movie Reviews

Year: 2018

Genre: Sci-Fi Drama

Directed: Alex Garland

Stars: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, Oscar Isaac, Benedict Wong, Sonoya Mizuno

Production: Paramount Pictures

Annihilation is Ambition – or at the very least what we’ve come to know as ambition. It is a stunningly beautiful, emotionally ratcheting and intellectually stimulating film to be sure; expertly crafted with an uncommon appreciation for the meditative, the obscure and the monstrous. At one point a character refers to “the shimmer,” the phenomena studied in Annihilation by its characters, as a prism. In a way so is this movie. Waves of information from the primordial to the meta-textual form the backbone of Annihilation, creating what amounts to the biggest mind-f*ck you’re liable to see this year.

The film begins in an uncomfortable daze. A meteor crash lands at the base of a Southern shore lighthouse. Oscar Isaac lurks in shadows – the first survivor to return from the alien force field around the site that slowly expands across miles of empty swamp. Lena (Portman) an accomplished biologist is now the second, and the first to adequately give testimony on what exactly goes on inside the shimmer.

And what exactly is the shimmer? Writer/Director Alex Garland does a great job keeping that mystery as opaque as can be without falling into a hole of diminishing returns. He accomplishes this largely through well-timed frights and beautifully acted character moments especially on the part of supporting players. We largely remain in the headspace of Portman’s ambulant Lena, yet fellow scientists-with-a-death-wish Anya (Rodriguez), Josie (Thompson) and Ventress (Jason Leigh) remain singular and engaging; so much so that they prod you to think about their motives and actions.

This, I feel is what makes Annihilation so refreshing and (thankfully) tempers its academic ambitions. Film-school students will gasp at the purposeful visual references to Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979) and Solaris (1972) but what Annihilation adds to film language is a drastically different context; one that almost seems to take delight in perverting visual and audio cues for the sake of some truly pulpy moments. One minute Garland is smuggling the most high-minded of overtones to get us thinking about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, next we’re sideswiped by bloodcurdling monster moments that’d feel at home in a 1960’s B-movie, only with much better effects.

It’s a tough balancing act and one that deserves the highest of praise even if the editing proves unmotivated most of the time. Throughout the film, you get the feeling something was lost in post-production like a thematic follow-through that the director thought lost its luster. At first, the compositions and cross-cutting between timelines felt like it was leading somewhere, but when the third act rolls around, it becomes clear that it’s all there just to keep the pace. That’s fine, that’s one of the largest functions of good editing. But one can’t help but be reminded of a movie like Arrival (2016) when watching Annihilation, compare the perfect synergy behind frame and function and think of Garland’s latest as somehow lesser-than. It’s even more frustrating when considering Garland’s freshman effort Ex Machina (2016), which did the above with so much aplomb that it still remains the best remix of art-house and heavy science-fiction sensibilities ever put to screen. How can it be that out of the two, both beset with themes of identity, humanity, and femininity, it’s Annihilation that has a last act that’s blocked like a Revlon commercial?

Yet if this is the director in a sophomore slump than I’m excited to see what he comes up with next. Annihilation’s biggest strength lies in its ability to punctuate stunning beauty and uncompromising ambition with exhibiting deeply felt characterizations that feel like they can exist in our world while also seeming otherworldly. Accomplished actresses Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez and Tessa Thompson are truly a sight to behold and Portman proves she’s more than capable of anchoring a movie with such loft.

Final Grade: B+