"Older viewers may find it agreeable if familiar fare, as extravagant in its visual opulence as it is formulaic in its thematic and storytelling choices."
As you say, what a fall from the heights of Pixar's glory days, when movies like _The Incredibles_ were truly great art, both in terms of the craft of storytelling in itself, and in substantive moral content.
Arrival is one of my favorite films in the last 25 years, and my favorite science fiction film in that time frame. I think you are right to say that acceptance is an important theme in the film that connects with Christian belief. I would go further and say that it is in an important sense pro-life: It says that the goodness of creation and the goodness of life remains even in its broken, fallen state. It affirms the goodness of a life limited and cut short by an incurable illness; it is better to choose to bring such a life into the world than not to. It says that even a marriage that ends in alienation and separation may still be a good thing while it lasts, and a thing worth choosing. It also speaks to our dissatisfaction with the broken state of the world and our circumscription by time, and our longing for transcendence.
Seriously, I think those are great points, true, and well put. The movie can be understood as a meditation on being pro-life and pro-marriage, despite everything.
Re-reading your Decent Films review of Arrival (excellent as always), I see you had also had some of the same reflections at the time.
Or, as I see that I had put it in my own piece, using one of my favorite DSDG words, "humanistic"
(huge DSDG fanboy over here),
"In this way, the perspective of the movie’s conclusion, while not specifically Christian, is like that of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: positive, humanistic, fundamentally optimistic that the blessings of life and human relationship are worth the pain and sorrow that, going along with them, are not only a necessary risk, but even a necessary reality."
"Older viewers may find it agreeable if familiar fare, as extravagant in its visual opulence as it is formulaic in its thematic and storytelling choices."
(Quote not contained in OP above, but in full review, https://decentfilms.com/articles/elio , if anyone is searching for it above)
As you say, what a fall from the heights of Pixar's glory days, when movies like _The Incredibles_ were truly great art, both in terms of the craft of storytelling in itself, and in substantive moral content.
Still, as you suggest by the end of your review, non-Christian art can sometimes very beautifully point us toward God, or at least suggest the possibility. (One thinks of Deacon Greydanus's review of _Eternal Sunshine_, https://decentfilms.com/reviews/eternalsunshine , or of movies like _Stranger than Fiction_ and _Arrival_. https://quantepast.substack.com/p/reflections-on-the-movie-arrival )
I'll take it.
Arrival is one of my favorite films in the last 25 years, and my favorite science fiction film in that time frame. I think you are right to say that acceptance is an important theme in the film that connects with Christian belief. I would go further and say that it is in an important sense pro-life: It says that the goodness of creation and the goodness of life remains even in its broken, fallen state. It affirms the goodness of a life limited and cut short by an incurable illness; it is better to choose to bring such a life into the world than not to. It says that even a marriage that ends in alienation and separation may still be a good thing while it lasts, and a thing worth choosing. It also speaks to our dissatisfaction with the broken state of the world and our circumscription by time, and our longing for transcendence.
I'll--"affirm" that!
Seriously, I think those are great points, true, and well put. The movie can be understood as a meditation on being pro-life and pro-marriage, despite everything.
Re-reading your Decent Films review of Arrival (excellent as always), I see you had also had some of the same reflections at the time.
Or, as I see that I had put it in my own piece, using one of my favorite DSDG words, "humanistic"
(huge DSDG fanboy over here),
"In this way, the perspective of the movie’s conclusion, while not specifically Christian, is like that of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: positive, humanistic, fundamentally optimistic that the blessings of life and human relationship are worth the pain and sorrow that, going along with them, are not only a necessary risk, but even a necessary reality."