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ANNIHILATION (2018) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

annihilation (2018) movie

Genre | Science Fiction

Classification | MA 15+

Running time | 115 minutes

Released | 12 March 2018

cast

Natalie Portman ... The Biologist
Tessa Thompson ... The Surveyor
Jennifer Jason Leigh ... The Psychologist
Oscar Isaac ... The Biologist's Husband
Benedict Wong ... Scientist

director

Alex Garland

writer

Alex Garland ... (adaptation)
Jeff VanderMeer ... (novel)

cinematographer

Rob Hardy

music

Geoff Barrow
Ben Salisbury

film editor

Barney Pilling

box office result

Worldwide $? million

Australia $? million

North America $? million

the best dialogue

things to spend money on ...

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ANNIHILATION (2018) MOVIE IMAGES

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Posters

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ANNIHILATION (2018) STORY SYNOPSIS

A group of soldiers enters an environmental disaster zone and only one comes back out alive, though he is grievously injured. In an attempt to save his life, his wife Lena, a biologist, volunteers for a second expedition into the zone to figure out what happened to him.

ANNIHILATION (2018) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty | Review date 12 March 2018
Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Make no mistake, Alex Garland’s ANNIHILATION is not a dramatic Science Fiction movie. It is a Drama wrapped up in a Science Fiction setting...

In many ways, it echoes 2016’s ARRIVAL, another great movie that, on the surface, was about aliens coming to Earth, but operated on a much deeper level and was more interested in exploring the human elements of its story. ANNIHILATION takes the same approach and is all the better for it.

The film is also notable for the very public schism that developed between the ANNIHILATION’s Producers, Scott Rudin and David Ellison. Ellison’s Skydance has been responsible for co-financing some of Paramount Pictures biggest projects over the last decade, but, according to reports, he lost confidence in Garland’s project as it neared completion. Rudin, on the other hand, maintained his support for ANNIHILATION and pushed for a full-scale theatrical release of the Director’s version. Something of a compromise was struck for the film’s worldwide distribution. The film would get a theatrical distribution in North America and China; elsewhere, it would be released via Netflix.

There’s no doubt that ANNIHILATION should be seen on a cinema screen. Garland’s regular Cinematographer, Rob Hardy, was on board for the film and it’s beautifully shot, utilising lots of natural light to highlight the botanical transformations that become integral to the story as an all-female expedition is sent into “Area X” in an effort to discover what is happening within the boundaries of an ever-expanding phenomenon that is the result of an alien object hitting the planet.

Natalie Portman is critical to the success of ANNIHILATION.

Over the years, Portman has developed into a very dependable leading actress. She rarely goes “Big” with her performance, preferring to internalize characters and force the camera to capture her emotion, preferring nuance and deliberately low speech to focus the viewer’s attention. Her performance in ANNIHILATION is true to recent form and her portrayal of Lena fits Garland’s overall vision perfectly.

At the start of the film, Lena is a very sympathetic character. It seems that her life has not quite gone the way she intended as she struggles with the disappearance of her husband Kane, played by Oscar Isaac, a US Special Forces Army soldier. Lena’s refusal to believe her husband has been killed-in-action is vindicated by his unannounced arrival home. Although happy and relieved to see him, Lena is concerned by the level of vagueness and uncertainty Kane provides when answering questions about where he’s been and how he got back to their home. When Kane’s health begins to deteriorate, Lena calls for an ambulance. En route to hospital, Kane and Lena are intercepted by a Black Ops team and taken to Area X, the location of “The Shimmer”.

One of the most impressive aspects of ANNIHILATION is how hard it is for the viewer to read what might happen next. The characters, plot and exposition of some movies make them very easy to read and, in somes cases, far less enjoyable, because viewers have arrived at the finale well before the film itself. That’s why so many “Blockbusters” feel like an anti-climax. They are formulaic by design and attempt to recreate the success of a previous movie.

ANNIHILATION is not afflicted by this problem.

Perhaps, the film’s literary source material accounts for this. The movie is based on Jeff VanderMeer’s first book in his Southern Reach trilogy. While the film version of ANNIHILATION follows the plot of the book, Garland, in his role as writer, takes significant elements of the two subsequent novels and weaves them into the movie. In the book, for example, the reader never learns the identities of the expedition group, as the story is presented as the field research journal of “the biologist”; the character of Lena in the film. Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character, Dr. Ventress, has a smaller role in Garland’s movie than she does in the Southern Reach trilogy and it’s one of the few shortcomings of the film.

In the books, Dr. Ventress is the Director of Southern Reach, but she is replaced when she decides to lead the 12th expedition into Area X; which is the expedition Garland also depicts. In the books, Ventress is a critical piece of the puzzle to unlock the secret of Area X. This is not so in the film. Jennifer Jason Leigh is a good actress, but there’s something amiss in her portrayal of Dr. Ventress. She never seems as physically committed to her mission as her dialogue would have the viewer believe. Her performance pulls up short and she comes across as a zealot without a whole lot of zealotry.

Oscar Isaac, on the other hand, is perfectly measured as Kane.

Isaac’s performances are always full of charisma, but in ANNIHILATION, the actor’s character is so intrinsic to one of the story’s biggest revelations that he has to keep things in check all the way to the film’s finale. Unlike the book, Kane becomes the central focus of Lena’s quest into Area X. She needs to know why her husband volunteered for the previous expedition and what happened to him while he was in there.

This is where ANNIHILATION differentiates itself from pop culture Science Fiction.

An argument could be mounted to suggest that ANNIHILATION isn’t even Science Fiction. It could, in fact, be argued that ANNIHILATION is more a Ghost story story. Everywhere the characters turn, both inside and outside Area X, they haunted both literally and figuratively by the people they’ve loved, the decisions they’ve made and the consequences they’ve faced as a result of their actions. Lena is certainly haunted by hers, but, in some way shape or form, so are the rest of the expedition team. Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez and Tuva Novotny play Radek, Thorensen and Sheppard respectively. Maintaining the book’s interest in personal psychology, Garland writes each of these characters as one of the eight defined character types. Radek is the Extraverted Sensation, Thorensen is the Introverted Thinking and Sheppard is the Introverted Feeling. The film’s 115 minute running time doesn’t allow for a full exploration of each of the supporting characters and, unfortunately, the fate of each character is enough for viewers to genuinely reflect that they were “making up the numbers”!

It’s easy to understand David Ellison’s concern about ANNIHILATION. It’s not a commercial film by any stretch, but nor is it the high-minded, cerebral work that was cited as the reason why Ellison had concerns. ANNIHILATION is a continuation of Alex Garland’s fascination with characters who aspire to the ideal of being better humans. It’s been a theme embedded in his writing and he has translated it into his work as a Director. The finished product is not slick, shiny or heavy on action, as might have been expected by Ellison; a financier whose association with filmmakers like J.J. Abrams, more than likely, predisposes him to a belief that any movie with less than a resting heart rate of 500 beats per minute is not worth releasing.

ANNIHILATION is a contemplation about life’s choices and how one person, when given the opportunity to reevaluate those choices, forces themself to confront their lesser qualities and start to make amends...