Annihilation **** ½ / *****
Directed by: Alex Garland.
Written by: Alex Garland based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer.
Starring: Natalie Portman (Lena), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Dr. Ventress), Tessa Thompson (Josie Radek), Gina Rodriguez (Anya Thorensen), Tuva Novotny (Cass Sheppard), Oscar Isaac (Kane), Benedict Wong (Lomax), David Gyasi (Daniel).
I have been sitting with Alex Garland’s remarkable Annihilation for a couple of days now, trying to figure out how best to review this odd, transfixing film. It has been marketed as a genre film – and that it certainly is – it is definitely science fiction, and there are elements of a horror film as well. But it’s a deeper film than most – one that not only encourages but demands introspection on behalf of the audience. The film’s tone is odd from the outset, and it gets stranger the further along it goes. The story hits the beats we expect it to in this type of a film – when a group of people head out into the unknown wilderness, not sure what they will find, you expect them to be picked off one at a time – but not like this. The ending of the film is odd, transfixing and profound. The fact that this is a film from a major studio, being given a wide release (at least in North America – the rest of the world will get it on Netflix, which is a shame – this film DEMANDS to be seen on a big screen, with the best sound possible) is amazing to me. How many wide release films so beholden to the work of Soviet master Andrei Tarkovsky are there?
The film stars Natalie Portman as Lena – a biologist, teaching at Johns Hopkins University, who used to be in the military. Her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac) still is – but he went on a mission a year ago, and has yet to return. She has heard nothing from or about him, and has been told he was killed on some sort of top secret mission. Then, he shows up at their house one night. There is something very definitely wrong with him – he doesn’t seem himself, and when he starts bleeding into his water glass she calls the ambulance. They don’t end up at the hospital though – but at Area X. This is where Lena learns of the Shimmer – a strange border that looks just like the name implies. The area enclosed in the shimmer keeps growing, and while you can cross the border into it, nothing comes back. Nothing except for Kane, who is now facing almost certain death? The last group to cross was all military men – so the next group is going to be a group of scientists – all women. They are led by Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a psychologist and also include Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson), a physicist, Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez) a paramedic and Cass Sheppard (Tuva Novotny), another scientist. Lena volunteers to go along as well – their goal is the lighthouse where the shimmer started, but to get there they have to go on a long walk, through dense woods, full of god knows what.
I don’t really want to discuss much of what happens beyond this point – it is better to experience that for yourself. What I will say is that director Alex Garland does a marvelous job at keeping every moment of the movie unsettling and disorienting. We are clearly on earth here, yet it almost seems like an alien planet – and one moment to the next, anything is possible. Garland metes out information in the film slowly and methodically. The structure of the film involves Lena being interviewed by a man in a biohazard suit, but also contains flashbacks to Lena and Kane’s time before the Shimmer, which do more than just provide backstory. The visuals, and in particular the sound design – with the strangest, most distinctive score in recent years by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury, which contribute to the strange otherworldly tone of the film. What’s also remarkable is how, despite the tone, the actresses all create distinct characters in the film, which keeps things grounded. Cass observes early in the film that every one of them is hiding something – that they have their own, dark reasons for coming into the shimmer – which effects them all in different ways, and changes their perspective.
The obvious touchstone here is Tarkovsky’s 1979 masterpiece Stalker (the great podcast The Next Picture Show is doing their duo next week on Stalker and Annihilation – and I don’t think I’ve ever anticipated a podcast more). Tarkovsky’s science fiction films – which also included Solaris (1972) – his best film – are different from most in the genre, as they require us to look inwards, not outwards (Solaris would make a great double bill with Kubrick’s 2001 – they are opposites in many ways).
The ending of the film is probably what concerned Paramount the most – what caused them to dump the film into theaters here, and sell it off to Netflix internationally, because they really don’t know what to do with a film like this. It very well may frustrate some viewers – viewers who want to be spoon fed everything, and told what to think, feel and what it all means. I don’t think Annihilation is all that hard to follow, or even interpret – but it certainly demands something on the part of the viewer that some just will not want to give. For those who want something more in their science fiction – something truly unique, Annihilation is a must see. It confirms Garland as one of the most interesting new directors around – following up his great 2015 film Ex Machina (a completely different kind of sci fi film) with something more ambitious, more ambiguous and altogether more remarkable. The film will likely not last long in theaters, but it will be remembered for years to come.
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