Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival might seem like a basic sci-fi movie on the surface, but it has a very complicated timeline that’s easy to misunderstand. The film tells the story of a professional linguist named Louise Banks who’s called in by the government when aliens land on the planet. It’s her job to ensure humans can interact effectively with these creatures, but she soon learns that their form of communication is beyond anything that human beings are capable of.
Arrival is an incredibly complicated story that he manages to make simple through plenty of clear visual clues, allowing the audience to track Banks’ journey from start to finish – even when it’s not presented that way in the story. The big twist at the end of Arrival reveals that everything preceding that moment hasn’t been exactly as it seems, but upon a rewatch of the movie, all the clues are presented from the beginning, allowing the audience to piece Banks’ timeline together in the right order.
Banks’ “Memories” Of Hannah Are Actually From The Future
Interaction With The Aliens Has Granted Banks The Gift Of Prescience
At the end of Arrival, it’s revealed that Banks has acquired the ability to view time in the same way that the aliens do: non-linearly. This means that she’s lost all concepts of past, present, and future, with each of these points bleeding together in her perception and happening all at once. It’s this distorted timeline that the audience is presented with right from the beginning, with the apparent flashbacks of Banks’ daughter revealed as memories that haven’t even happened yet.
It distorts her perception of time and prevents her from experiencing her own life in the order it should happen.
Arrival’s twist messes with the audience’s mind at first, but it makes sense once they view the narrative as non-linear. Banks’ daughter hasn’t been born when she experiences these memories, and Banks knows she’s destined to only live 12 years. It distorts her perception of time and prevents her from experiencing her own life in the order it should happen. This ability is shown to be both a blessing and a curse, as she uses her knowledge of the future to bend the present around her will in a non-zero-sum game.
Arrival’s Events All Happen Once, But Nonlinearly
The Arrival Movie’s Non-Sequential Narrative Explained
What’s important to note about Arrival’s timeline is that it’s not non-linear in the same way that movies like Pulp Fiction or Memento are non-linear: it’s not jumping between past, present, and future. These moments are all happening at the same time, but Banks (and the aliens) are the only ones who aren’t forced to view them in a sequential order.
When the audience is presented with those “memories” of Hannah’s death, this isn’t something that Banks has experienced in the past or will experience in the future, it’s something that she’s experiencing right now — but it takes the aliens for her to gain access to this. The clues to Arrival’s twist are available from the beginning, as the story opens on something that hasn’t technically happened yet from Banks’ perspective.
Villeneuve is allowing his viewers to go through the same process as his protagonist.
By confusing the audience and placing them within this non-linear time frame, director David Villeneuve is allowing his viewers to go through the same process as his protagonist and gradually learn to view time differently. These moments in Banks’ timeline are all presented out of order, and while they initially appear to be flashbacks, it makes the twist ending much more comprehensible, as the audience is already familiar with this non-linear progression.
Arrival’s Linear Timeline Begins With The Aliens’ Arrival & Ends With Hannah’s Death
The Actual Order Of Events In Arrival Creates Different Ways To View The Story
Although Banks can experience time non-linearly, that isn’t true for every other character in the story. They have to live their lives sequentially, which means there does exist a linear timeline that everybody else must follow. In terms of the events covered in Arrival, this timeline begins with the aliens arriving on Earth, continues into Banks’ attempts to make conversation with them, and ultimately results in Hannah’s death approximately thirteen years later.
It’s this ability to view the story in several different ways that makes Arrival one of Villeneuve’s best movies yet. The audience is initially thrust into Banks’ distorted perspective, but thanks to the clues Villeneuve includes, there’s enough information to piece together the timeline and make sense of this story from a more accessible perspective. Hannah’s death is both the beginning and the ending of Arrival, depending on which point you’re accessing the story from, which makes the movie an endless cycle.
This Kind Of Timeline Twist Has Been Used In Other Movies
Christopher Nolan Has Been Known To Play Around With Time
The twist in Arrival comes with the reveal of the truth behind the movie’s timeline. While Arrival finds a new approach to such a storytelling twist, such timeline reveals have been used in countless movies with a number of notable mentions. Memento is one of the most famous movies to play around with time with the movie being told in reverse – the first scene in the movie comes at the last point in the movie’s timeline. The final moments show where the story actually began and it reveals the true motivations behind the protagonist.
Interestingly, some of the biggest twists in Christopher Nolan’s movies involve time as it seems to be a subject he is fascinated with. Both Interstellar and Tenet use time as a unique storytelling element with their respective endings revealing that the main character had gone back in time to influence his past self to make the decisions he made in the movie. Similar to Arrival, the pieces of the timeline begin to fall into place and everything begins to make sense.
One of the things that makes Arrival‘s twist so effective is the reveal that everything the audience thought was a flashback is actually a glimpse into the future. This twist is also seen in the underrated sci-fi movie 12 Monkeys. Bruce Willis’ character frequently has dreams where he remembers seeing a man killed in front of him as a child with the ᴀssumption that it is his father. However, when Willis’ character is sent back in time, it is revealed that he is the man who was killed in front of his younger self.
These movies with complex timelines can be tricky to decipher but that can often lead to brilliant twist endings.
Why Arrival Has One Of The Best Twists Ever
It Is A Twist That Enhances The Movie
Arrival was a critically acclaimed sci-fi movie, winning an Oscar and being nominated for seven more, with particular praise going to Denis Villeneuve’s direction and Amy Adams’ performance. However, it is the movie’s ending that really led to its impact, with it being regarded as one of the best twist endings of all time. While there are plenty of iconic movie endings that surprise audiences with the pieces suddenly falling into place, Arrival is one of the most recent to blow audiences away.
Like all great twist endings, the reveal in Arrival makes the audience immediately want to go back and rewatch the movie from the beginning. With all the pieces now revealed, it is a real treat to see all the clues laid out and how the twist was built. Of course, just having a twist in the end doesn’t work if it does not feel organic to the story and doesn’t feel like it matters. In the case of Arrival, it not only takes the story in a whole new direction but also adds an emotional element that is profound and unique.
Another reason the movie’s twist works so well is because it gives the audience elements of it early on. The scene in which Louise is able to pull some information from the past to tell her daughter is the first indication that the timeline of the movie is warped. It is a thrilling reveal even if it is not quite clear what is happening. However, with that piece of information, the twist begins to gradually build and build, with the audience starting to piece it together with the characters.
All these elements help Arrival deliver a twist that achieves so much in being exciting and intelligent, enhancing the viewing experience, and delivering another emotional layer to the story.
Arrival Wouldn’t Be As Good If It Was Told In A Linear Timeline
The Emotional Impact Of The Movie Comes From The Complex Timeline
Arrival’s timeline may be confusing, but it also adds so much to the movie. When I watched Arrival for the first time, I was engrossed with the fairly straightforward story about the intricacies of humanity’s first interactions with an alien species without any notion that there was a complex timeline being woven underneath that story. However, it is hard to deny that the reveal of how time works in the story made the movie much more rewarding and delivered something more special than if told in a linear timeline.
The most obvious benefit of the complex timeline in Arrival is how it gives the audience a mystery and puzzle to work out. I remember seeing this movie in a fairly crowded theater with the sense that everyone was as engaged with the story as I was. However, the atmosphere changed with the moment in which Louise, in one of her “memories,” seems to pluck a piece of information out of the main timeline. The collective audience murmured with excitement as, even though things were not yet clear, we were just told there was more to this movie.
The rest of the movie unfolds with more puzzle pieces being handed to the audience with the always satisfying feeling of it all fitting into place to reveal of complete picture in the end. However, as with the best movie twists, it wasn’t just that it surprised the audience, but that it impacted them. Arrival‘s twist, though it comes in the midst of a complex sci-fi idea, is an emotionally powerful and human moment that comments on loss and grief while asking the question of whether the good memories are worth enduring the painful ones.
The audience comes to the realization of what the future has in store for Louise at the same time she does. It creates a beautifully bittersweet moment that would not have worked without the timeline being the way that it is. The ending of Arrival sees Louise arriving at the beginning of the most important, joyful, and sorrowful period of her life, willing to face it regardless.
