When 12 unidentified objects appear in different locations over the globe, linguist Louise Banks is recruited by the United States government to translate the alien language of their visitors to find out why they are here. Working with scientist Ian Donnelly, the two are pressed for time as the Chinese and Russians are quickly resorting to war with the beings they know nothing about.

In my opinion, Arrival is probably the best movie I saw in theaters this year. The story line is both simple and complex: simple because the main focus is on deciphering an alien language, but complex because there is a deeper story going on that the viewer may not be fully aware of until the end.

I didn’t know much about the movie going in to it. I only saw one trailer, and I hadn’t looked up anything else about it so I wasn’t completely sure what to expect. The performances by Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner were well done, with the characters developing at an appropriate speed. But what I think made the movie is how the story line was written: with the bigger story, and the twist, perfectly hidden so the viewer does not know what is going on until closer to the end, and not everything made sense until the big twist. Even after the credits were rolling, I had to sit and think about what happened because I was still in awe of how well it was played out without being given away. Overall, Arrival is one of those movies that you may have to watch several times to catch everything, but everything about it is so well done that I personally would have no problem with that.