ASSIGNMENT 03

FILM CRITIQUE : ARRIVAL

Question 3 & 4:

To critically assess the Cast Design and their individual character. Was the cast designed well?Did all chracter have a purpose? Were the individual character well explored? Or lack depth?

Louise Banks by Amy Adams (Linguist)

One of the main cast of the movie, she started off with a darkness in her life where she, a single mother of a daughter, where they had great time living together despite her husband’s absence. That is until her daughter had an incurable sickness, who later passed away.

This setting creates a moody atmosphere for the transaction into the next key scene of the movie, the arrival. It also further promotes the character into the perfect protagonist as she took the risk to understand, and communicate with the so-called aliens to find out the reason behind what seemed to be an invasion.

From the start, Adams imbues Louise with a quiet, effective emotional undercurrent that’s essential to the film’s success. Where she is shown to be living alone, and not fond by the crowd of people as she walked past the television showing the news. After finding out, Louise shows this curious interest, to willing join the military in helping to decode the reasons for the arrival. She kept it up by showing her anxiousness right before coming into the contact with the extraterrestrials.

The richness of personality of the character Louise, is then topped by a show of braveness going into the process of bonding and understanding with the extraterrestrial, as she took the initiative to imply a closer encounter by taking off the hazmat suit despite not knowing it is safe or not.

As the plot goes on further, the character of Louise also grows into the same pace, as her professionalism in linguistics is exposed, where she slowly but surely started to decode the communication of the aliens. From this we can see that Louise is a strong and intelligent individual.

The plot then came to a twist where what seemed to be her flashback moments are actually a glimpse into the future, this twist successfully provide a shock to the viewers as it is plotted masterfully and partnered by the incredible acting of the character Louise.

Over all I think this character is very well designed, and even better played, explored and showed as Amy Adams gives a confident, affecting performance as Louise. The character also showed great depth as viewers, step by step, starts to unravel the plot of the character into an unexpected ending.

Ian Donnelly by Jeremy Renner (Theoretical Physicist)

The introduction of this character came short and quick as Louise first met Ian in a chopper on the way to the Montana military base camp.

The selection of cast, Jeremy Renner for this character, is not illogical to think of. With the solid experience, it plays him into this confidence and intelligent theoretical physicist. Where he plays a role just as important, to support Louise in solving the mystery of the invasion.

The intelligence and affectionate part of his character is then shown to the audience, when he solved the final piece of the puzzle given by Abbott while Louise was still unconscious due to concussion from the blast. Which turns out to be just one of the twelve pieces of information given by the extraterrestrial. As the plot progress into the final piece, it is then the audience would find out that he was the future husband of Louise, as shown in her hallucination.

Overall, although the character lacked depth, he still blends in very well into the plot, as he brings the plot and the character of Louise to grow as it progress through the plot. So I think it is well designed and well explored slowly through the process of the plot.

Colonel Gt Weber by Forest Whittaker (Senior US Military Officer),

Agent David Halpern by Michael Stuhlbarg (Head of CIA),

General Shang by Tzi Ma, (General of The People’s Republic of China Army)

All these character are played in to their role in more straightforward approach as they both need little depth and history to it. Colonel Weber provides a bold and leadership towards the whole operation, as the plot went by, and it makes important decision wisely during the time of stress.

As for Agent Halpern, he was there to fit into this mild antagonist as he continuously questioned Louise’s way of solving the mystery of the invasion, and to provide a few obstacles of obstruction to Louise.

General Shang on the other hand showed a dominant leadership in the plot, where he greatly influences the whole outcome of the people’s action. It is up to him to differ outcome of the whole plot.

As conclusion, I thought that all these character somehow fit nicely into the plot as it provides the needed flare to the plot, where they were without any unnecessary depth to their character.