THE AMATEUR : Tuesday 15th April 2025

I saw the M Rated 'THE AMATEUR' earlier this week at my local independent movie theatre, and this American vigilante action spy thriller film is Directed by James Hawes and is based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Robert Littell, which was previously adapted into a Canadian film that same year with John Savage, Christopher Plummer and Marthe Keller. James Hawes previous feature film making effort was 'One Life' in 2023, although he has Directed numerous TV series since the early 2000's, including multiple episodes of 'Doctor Who', 'Merlin', 'Penny Dreadful', 'Black Mirror', 'Snowpiercer' and 'Slow Horses'. The film was released in the US last week too, has so far grossed US$35M from a production budget of US$60M and has garnered mixed or average reviews. 

Here then, Charles 'Charlie' Heller (Rami Malek, who also Co-Produces here), is a brilliant yet deeply introverted CIA cryptographer, who as the film opens up is seen carefully unwrapping parts to restore an old Cessna single prop plane that was gifted to him by his wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan). Later that same day Sarah departs for London where she is attending a four day conference. She asks him to join her, but as usual he declines saying that he has too much important work to do at Langley. At the CIA's Decryption and Analysis division, Charlie has befriended a field agent nicknamed 'the Bear' (Jon Bernthal), and an anonymous source codenamed 'Inquiline'. 

Inquiline sends Charlie highly classified and heavily encrypted files that reveal Special Activities Centre Director and Charlie's boss Alex Moore (Holt McCallany) altered politically-motivated drone strikes as suicide bombings. Later that evening Charlie tries calling Sarah but he only goes through to her voicemail. The next morning Charlie subsequently is brought to CIA Director Samantha O'Brien (Julianne Nicholson), who informs him that Sarah has been killed in a terrorist attack in London. Charlie is disbelieving until he sees raw footage displayed on a TV screen in her office downloaded from a security camera in close proximity to the hotel where Sarah was shot execution style.

A grieving Charlie soon afterwards presents his own findings to Moore and his CIA Deputy Caleb Horowitz (Danny Sapani). After an arms deal gone wrong, four assailants took Sarah and others hostage, killing her before escaping. Charlie identifies the suspects, Belarusian criminal Mishka Blazhic (Marc Rissmann), South African ex-special forces operative Ellish (Joseph Millson), former Armenian intelligence officer Gretchen Frank (Barbara Probst), and elusive mastermind Horst Schiller (Michael Stuhlbarg), Sarah's killer. However, Moore and Horowitz insist they are working to take down Schiller's entire network, and as such tell Charlie to keep out. Determined to avenge Sarah, Charlie confronts Moore and Horowitz with his incriminating orders, which caused hundreds of civilian and allied casualties. Initially Moore brushes off the evidence laid before him, but Charlie then threatens to leak the information to the CIA Director and then the news channels. Charlie demands the available CIA resources to personally hunt down the four terrorists.

And so Charlie is sent off to train with Col. Robert Henderson (Laurence Fishburne) at Camp Peary. The gun-shy Charlie excels at bomb-making, but Henderson lays it out clearly on the line that he is simply not capable of killing anyone. Meanwhile, Moore and Horowitz mobilise a team of CIA operatives to search Charlie's home, office and anywhere he may have visited recently. They discover a CD he hid in a bar's jukebox, but realise he was bluffing when the CD is examined. Henderson is ordered to eliminate Charlie, who bugged the files he left in Moore's office, but he had already vacated his room and was on his way out of the country on a flight bound for London and then a train to Paris, using the fake ID documents he had been given by the CIA.

Charlie tracks down Gretchen Frank in Paris, following an on-line lock-picking tutorial to break into her apartment. He discovers Gretchen's appointment at an asthma and allergy clinic and takes a gun, but cannot bring himself to shoot her when she returns to her home. The next day he buys up all the lilies at a street florist shop, and he traps Gretchen at the clinic in a hypobaric chamber that he fills with the pollen extracted from the lilies. Charlie demands to know Schiller's location, but is unwilling to let Gretchen die and releases her. The pair fight, but she escapes to the street, followed in hot pursuit by Charlie, and is fatally struck by a passing van. Taking Gretchen's phone, Charlie catches a bus to Marseille where Henderson corners him in a bar, but he sets off an explosion in the mens rest room and escapes. 

He requests Inquiline's help and is smuggled to Istanbul, where Inquiline (Caitriona Balfe) reveals herself as the Russian widow of a murdered ex-KGB officer, having taken his place as Charlie's source some six years prior. They trace Blazhic to a luxury hotel in Madrid, while O'Brien learns Moore has sent Henderson after Charlie, and sends her own operative.

In Madrid, Charlie confronts Blazhic as he swims alone in the hotel's rooftop infinity pool perched sixteen storey's up between two towers. He has rigged scuba equipment to decompress the air between the pool's sheets of glass. When Blazhic refuses to answer any questions, Charlie at the press of a button shatters the glass and sends him plummeting to his death. He is nearly apprehended once again by Henderson, who is attacked by O'Brien's operative. In the ensuing struggle, Henderson is shot but kills the operative, allowing Charlie to escape once more. Horowitz realises that Charlie is communicating with someone by spotting an earpiece he is wearing in CCTV footage from the hotel. He tracks down Inquiline and sends a strike team from the CIA Field Office in Istanbul, and Inquiline is killed in a hail of rapid gun fire as she flees with Charlie in a car.

Charlie tracks down Ellish in Romania under the pretence of selling him missiles and traps him with an improvised explosive device that has a remotely activated motion sensor, forcing him to reveal that Schiller operates from a ship on the Baltic Sea. He takes Ellish's phone and leaves him to die in the explosion. Charlie arrives in Primorsk to spy on Schiller's operation. Bear confronts him in a dock side cafe, but Charlie refuses to end his personal vendetta, and so he leaves Charlie pondering his fate.

Charlie is captured and is taken aboard Schiller's ship, coming face-to-face with Sarah's killer. Schiller offers him a loaded gun and the chance to take his revenge. Standing over Schiller with the pistol pointed squarely at Schiller's head and within point blank range, he drops the gun and takes a seat. Charlie reveals that he just had to keep talking long enough as he hacked the ships control systems, steering it to the Gulf of Finland where Schiller and his crew are taken into custody by Finnish Police and Interpol. O'Brien goes public with her revelations about Moore and Horowitz who are later arrested for their unsanctioned operations. After being visited by a recovered Henderson, Charlie is seen taking his restored Cessna plane for its first flight.

With 'The Amateur' Director James Hawes has here delivered a fairly predictable by the numbers spy action thriller that is straight out of the Bourne, or Bond or M:I playbook, with locations spread far and wide, well choreographed action set pieces, but a plot that leaves a lot to be desired. That said it is still entertaining enough and Malek does his best at his portrayal of the CIA computer nerd thrust into a world that he is ill equipped to handle but nonetheless his very particular set of skills at the keyboard enable him to win the day over those bad terrorist types. It has a strong supporting cast with Holt McCallany and Laurence Fishburne as dependable as ever, but Jon Bernthal is wasted with about as much as three minutes in total of screen time out of a total run time of just a nudge over two hours. You can either choose to watch it at your local big screen Odeon or wait to catch it via streaming - either way you could do worse!

'The Amateur' warrants three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

SHIRLEY : Tuesday 14th July 2020.

'SHIRLEY', which was my first return foray out to my local independent movie theatre earlier this week following four months of cinema closures because of the COVID-19 pandemic, is Directed by Josephine Decker whose previous film making credits include 'Butter on the Latch', 'Thou Wast Mild and Lovely' and 'Madeline's Madeline' most recently in 2018. Based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Susan Scarfe Merrell, the film saw its World Premier screening at the Sundance Film Festival in late January this year, went on general release on June 5th in the US, and here in Australia on July 9th. This biographical drama film charts a period in the life of acclaimed American  horror and mystery author Shirley Jackson who lived from 1916 until 1965 and who penned amongst others 'The Haunting of Hill House', is portrayed by Elisabeth Moss, who also takes a Co-Producer credit. It has generated mostly positive Reviews so far.

The film opens up with Rose (Odessa Young) reading the finishing pages of 'The Lottery' a short story by Shirley Jackson while abroad a train bound for Vermont, and then feeling horny grabs her husband Fred (Logan Lerman) and leads him into the toilet for a quick one.

Arriving at the home of Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss) and her husband Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg) during a party, Rose announces to Shirley that they are invited house guests and will be staying for a week or so at the behest of her husband - a literary critic and Professor at Bennington College, in Vermont. Rose and Fred are to continue with their studies, with Fred working alongside Stanley to aid him with his research while he completes his dissertation. Shirley is far from welcoming of Rose and Fred saying that she does not like strangers around the house, and their initial interactions are frosty to say the least.

It doesn't take long before Stanley puts a proposal to Fred for them both to remain at the house for an extended period with free board and lodgings if Rose is prepared to help clean, cook, and look after Shirley throughout the day, on the basis that their last housekeeper just upped sticks and left without warning because of Shirley's mood swings, demands and unpredictable nature. Fred wholeheartedly agrees but Rose is more reluctant as it means that she'll need to drop out of college for the foreseeable future when she thought that she and Fred would both be studying on an equal footing.

Shirley is in the throes of depression, struggles with agoraphobia, suffering from writers block, and spending the majority of her time languishing in her bed all day with a cigarette in one hand and a stiff drink in the other. She is barely only able to surface at dinner time when Stanley and Fred return from their day at College and it's cocktail hour before dinner is served. Slowly, however, Shirley begins to warm towards Rose, and she begins tapping away at her typewriter working on a novel about a missing girl named Paula Jean Welden, that would go on to become 'Hangsaman', who disappeared from the Bennington College campus. Stanley meanwhile, is off to his philandering and controlling ways with young Fred in tow at College for most of the day, and plays the dutiful husband when he gets home at night just in time for cocktail hour, or well beyond it having stayed late to attend the 'Shakespeare Society'. However, it quickly becomes plain that Stanley's motives to get his wife writing again are more driven by the finances her next work will generate, and the kudos he reaps from being the literary critic of his wife's works.

Shirley and Stanley seem to bicker most of the time, sparring off against each other often with a subtle malevolence, but they also relish in belittling Rose and Fred over dinner for their own amusement and for which they offer no apology, and which only goes to show the young couple as lesser mediocre mortals in their eyes. Rose and Fred's relationship begins to deteriorate when Fred begins coming home late from College having attended the Shakespeare Society, and Fred starts seeing the influence that Shirley is having upon Rose. Furthermore, Rose is in the early stages of pregnancy - a fact that Shirley is able to 'sense', and blurts it out one evening over dinner much to the surprise of Fred. As Rose's pregnancy develops so Fred seems increasingly turned off by her ever expanding bump. Ultimately, Shirley tells Rose that there is no such thing as the Shakespeare Society at College, this is just a cover for meeting young female students that the men can take advantage off, and often do.

As Shirley's novel develops so her fascination with the disappearance of Paula intensifies. Shirley imagines Rose, and Rose imagines herself as Paula, the red head walking quickly through the woods wearing a red coat with her face blurred out, looking over her shoulder.

This all comes to head when Rose has had her baby and one day while driving in the car together with Shirley, Rose asks Shirley to stop the car. Rose gets out leaving Shirley holding the baby, and off Rose trundles at a goodly pace through the woods, leaving Shirley to traipse after her carrying the crying child. Shirley emerges at a clearing with Rose standing at the edge of a sheer drop, with Shirley begging her to step away from the edge. Is it Rose or Paula standing there, as the figure launches itself into the air. We then cut away to Rose and her baby, and Fred, departing the residence for good in a car, bidding their farewells.

The final scene sees Stanley critiquing Shirley's manuscript of what will be her latest novel, completed. She sits as the dining table dutifully, complete with facial ticks, tweaks and distortions, while Stanley reads the final pages. He rises out of his lounge chair in the background and approaches the table and sits in front of her. Brilliant he exclaims, her best work yet and a sure fire best seller, although he has made some notes as is his want in life.

This is Elisabeth Moss' film for sure - she excels in her portrayal of Shirley Jackson, even down to the dead ringer looks, the think rimmed spectacles, the mane of hair, her frumpy dress style and her seemingly never ending consumption of cigarettes and alcohol. The Director Josephine Decker while taking liberties with the truth, for example portraying Jackson and Hyman as childless when in fact they had four children, and her reliance on short stories and novels in the horror and mystery genre was in fact more successful in writing parenting books and children's works. Despite this poetic license, Decker has crafted an insightful film that lurches from gothic undertones to domestic drama to horror and back again with Young cast as the prefect foil for Moss as they tip toe through their evolving relationship without it ever really going anywhere, and Stuhlbarg as the bigoted womanising holier than thou acerbic husband. All that said, 'Shirley' is at times confusing, its plods along at times at a snails pace, and is more style over substance but is saved by Moss' stellar performance, her razor sharp dialogue, and her uncanny knack for inhibiting this character with a realism and believability that is worthy of an Oscar nod for sure.

'Shirley' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE SHAPE OF WATER : Tuesday 13th February 2018.

'THE SHAPE OF WATER' which I finally caught earlier this week, has had much written about it already, has been hailed as one of the years best films by many Critics, has garnered a truck load of award wins and nominations, and has taken US$75M at the Box Office from its rather modest budget of just US$20M. The film Premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in late August where it was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Film in competition, and it screened too at TIFF in September before opening in the US in early December. Praised universally for its strong performances, production design, storyline, Direction and musical score, the film was Co-Written for the screen by Guillermo del Toro based on his own idea for the story, Co-Produced and Directed by him too. So far 'The Shape of Water' has picked up 84 award wins and 251 nominations, including thirteen yet to be announced Academy Awards, twelve also yet to be announced BAFTA Awards, as well as winning two Golden Globes and being nominated for five others; two SAG Awards nominations; three International AACTA Award nods; two Satellite Award wins and another eight nominations. Not a bad tally at all!

The film opens with Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) waking up, bathing, fixing herself a packed lunch, polishing her shoes and catching a bus to work from her apartment above a movie theatre. She clocks on at midnight in the secret Government laboratory somewhere in Baltimore during the Cold War era of the early 1960's where Elisa works as a cleaner. Elisa we learn early on is mute, unable to speak but able to hear perfectly. She communicates using sign language. She has three parallel scars on either side of her neck, which she has had since childhood - possibly the cause of her being mute, but the reasons for the scars is a mystery. She seems to have only two friends in the world - her neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins) - a gay advertisement illustrator who was let go by his former employer for reasons that are unknown but he still gets contract work from his connections there. And then there is Zelda Fuller (Octavia Spencer) - a co-worker and partner in mop and broom pushing, who looks out for Eliza and acts as her interpreter in the workplace.

While going about the cleaning rounds, the facility takes receipt of a top secret casket in which is contained some kind of creature immersed in water. Elisa glimpses it momentarily before the casket is removed, and she is asked to leave the room. Later, a mystery figure appears and introduces himself as Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) to the pair of cleaners while they are cleaning the gents toilet. He takes a nonchalant leak while the pair chat to him, and as he leaves he takes his cattle prod with him which he left on the sink, dripping blood, while he relieved himself. He thanks the ladies for their time, the conversation and bids them farewell. It turns out that Strickland captured the creature from some South American river and spent months in bringing it back to Baltimore for scientific analysis. Soon afterwards alarm bells start ringing and Strickland is seen emerging from the room bleeding badly clutching his hand. Senior officials order the cleaners into the room and give them twenty minutes to mop up all the blood on the floor. While doing so Elisa retrieves two severed fingers (Strickland's) and drops them into a spent brown paper bag containing the remnants of her lunchtime sandwich.

Letting curiosity get the better of her, Elisa investigates the mysterious creature further, gaining access to the room where it is being held, under the auspices of her cleaning routines. She discovers that the creature is a humanoid amphibian (Doug Jones) half man half lizard type and over time she and it grow close. She brings it eggs to eat which he likes, plays music which he appreciates, and attempts to communicate using her sign language which the creature quickly learns to imitate.

Enter General Frank Hoyt (Nick Searcy) who orders Strickland to vivisect the creature and learn from it what he can. Strickland has a dislike for the creature and taunts it with his cattle prod for pleasure - enjoying it's reaction to the pain and watching it bleed. Standing by and keeping a watchful eye on these events as they unfold is Dr. Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg) one of the Scientists within the facility. He is secretly a Russian spy, and he urges Strickland not to operate on the creature as there is so much to be learned by keeping it alive. However, concurrently, Hoffstetler is ordered by his Russian superiors to euthanise the creature.

Elisa overhears Strickland's orders to dispense with the creature and convinces Giles to help her free it. At first he refuses, but comes around to her way of thinking when he sees just how much the creature means to her. Hoffstetler meanwhile, learns of Elisa's plan to free the creature, and offers his help. Zelda too joins the escape plan. Ultimately their plan is successful, but only just, with Giles driving off the premises in a laundry van with Eliza and the creature huddled in the back as it is riddled by bullets as Strickland gives chase. He has however, no idea who the perpetrators of the cunning escape plan are, believing it to be the work of a gang of well organised men, probably pesky Ruskies!

Back at her apartment, Elisa keeps the creature in her bathtub and uses some form of water treatment compound supplied by Hoffstetler that needs to be changed every three days, plus a good dose of salt. She plans to release the creature into the nearby canal which flows through to the sea when the rains come and the water level rises. This is a few days from now. She marks the date of her planned release on a wall calendar. Meanwhile, Strickland interviews Elisa and Zelda but they claim to know nothing and sit across the table from him in all innocence. Elisa's mute status proving a real advantage here.

Back at the apartment Giles is maintaining a watchful eye on the creature, but dozes off to sleep. He awakes to find the creature eating one of his cats, and startled the creature makes a bolt for the door, and in so doing slashes Giles arm, resulting in profuse bleeding. Giles alerts Elisa and she quickly discovers the creature in the cinema below where she lives, and escorts him back to the apartment. The creature lays his hands on Giles head and his slashed arm. The next day Giles is surprised to see that his hair is growing back on his head, and the wound to his arm has healed without a trace of the prior injury. Elisa and the creature become romantically and emotionally involved.

Hoyt is becoming increasingly agitated by Strickland's lack of traction in recovering the creature. He delivers an ultimatum to do so within 36 hours or else suffer the consequences of being wiped off the face of the earth as though he never existed. Meanwhile, Hoffstetler is told that his planned extraction is scheduled for two days hence. As Hoffstetler waits to meet up with his colleagues for the extraction, they are tailed by Strickland who shoots the two senior Russian Agents dead, but not before they popped a few bullets into Hoffstetler. In his dying moments and in the pouring rain, Strickland tortures Hoffstetler for information regarding the gang who allegedly freed the creature. Hoffstetler tells him that it was not a gang, but the cleaners, and then he dies from his wounds. Strickland barges in on Zelda's home and threatens her and her husband. Her husband, terrified for his life, advises that Elisa has been keeping the creature at her apartment. He drives over to Elisa's place, breaks the door down but finds no sign of anyone. Scouting around the apartment looking for clues as to their whereabouts, he spies the hand written note on the wall calendar, for today is the planned day of the creatures release into the canal.

At the canal, down by the waters edge Giles and Elisa bid farewell to the creature. Strickland pulls up in his car and attacks all three of them, pumping two bullets into the chest of the creature and one into Elisa's stomach. They fall down motionless side by side. By now the Police have arrived accompanied by Zelda. Within a few moments, the creature is standing, having self-healed. He walks up to Strickland and with a single swipe of his hand, slices open his throat. The creature picks up the limp body of Elisa and jumps into the canal with her. As they gradually sink, the creature heals her wounds and transforms the scars of either side of her neck into gills. The pair of unlikely lovers are presumed to have lived happily ever after.

This is an engaging Science fantasy dramatic love story that has heart, emotion, danger and intrigue all in equal measure all rolled up in stunning performances from Hawkins, Jenkins, Jones, and Shannon especially who are almost faultless in their roles. Added to this the production values are top notch and del Toro's creative flair continues to demonstrate his unmatched ability to surprise and delight his audience with a fresh and new approach to other worldly old stories of fairy tales and horror, just as he has done here with 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon' influences. 'The Shape of Water' is a rich immersive beautifully realised film in every sense, matched only by his earlier 'Pan's Labyrinth' and certainly well worth the price of your ticket and worthy of its numerous award wins and nominations - you won't be disappointed.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

ARRIVAL : Tuesday 15th November 2016

And so the aliens have landed, in the form of first contact offering 'ARRIVAL' which I saw earlier this week based on the 1998 short Sci-Fi story 'Story of Your Life' by Ted Chiang. But make no mistake - this is no 'Independence Day', no 'War of the Worlds', no 'District 9' or 'The Thing' but more akin to the thinking mans 'Contact', 'Interstellar', 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind', and 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'. The films already highly rated adaptation is Directed by Denis Villeneuve, was made for US$47M, has taken US$39M at the global Box Office so far, and Premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in early September where it won the Future Film Festival Digital Award, and was nominated for a Golden Lion.

Here, twelve vast and mysterious alien spaceships touch down in various seemingly random locations around the world. Termed 'Shells' by the Americans because of their elliptical shape they measure about 1500 meters tall and hover motionless about ten meters off the ground, not emitting any sound, any gas, any radiation and constructed of a solid black stone like material the like of which is unknown to us. One such Shell has touched down in Montana, and this is where the action plays out in a hastily set up Army camp close by to the alien craft.

Every eighteen hours a hatch opens at the base allowing a small delegation of humans in to explore the anti-gravity interior where they emerge in a chamber with a huge rectangular window - the other side of which in a swirling white mist appear two 'heptapods' - seven legged beings towering over the humans, that bear no resemblance to anything we have seen before. Their 'finger tips' at the end of each limb opens up like a starfish from which they are able to emit an ink like substance thats swirls around and clings to the window like a coffee mug stain on a table. It then fades away and disappears once the humans have been able to capture it on film before another circular symbol is formed. This is the language of the aliens, and it is this language that renowned linguist professor Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) has been brought in to rather hurriedly decipher.

Joining Banks is theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) who now head up a team of other so called 'experts' endeavouring to communicate with the aliens and learn of their intentions. They report through to US Army Colonel Weber (Forest Whittaker). Weber is under pressure from Agent Halpern (Michael Stuhlbarg) who is more than gung-ho to let loose on the aliens with a can of Uncle Sam's whoop-ass, particularly when progress with communicating is painstakingly slow, and tensions are mounting at the other eleven locations around the world. Communicating with each nations leaders via a bank of live feed monitors, it soon becomes clear that each has a different agenda on what action to take, and all are learning different things about their respective Shells as time progresses, but are not prepared to share their discoveries.

Around the world there is rioting and looting in the streets and the social fabric of our planet is quickly falling into decay as it is realised that we are not alone in the universe, and according to the media and the doomsayers the end is nigh, and the aliens have come to attack and wipe out all known civilisation. In the meantime, the Chinese  and the Russians join forces and are quickly preparing to mount a full scale attack on the Shells located in their parts of the world if they don't haul ass soon and get the hell outta Dodge!

Meanwhile Banks and Donnelly are inside the shell every eighteen hours as the days, weeks and months pass by, with little progress being made. The alien language is very complicated, but through perseverance and applying what they both know, some progress is made. The aliens scroll a message that translates to 'offer weapon', and this is also seen in the other eleven Shells around the world. The world leaders are fearful upon seeing 'weapon' that they are under likely attack and begin mounting an offensive campaign. Banks however, interprets 'weapon' as 'tool' - a device to aid and assist, and perhaps the aliens are attempting to trade something of value, and important.

Throughout all of this Banks is having flash-backs about her daughter growing up and passing away from a rare disease while in her late teens - images we saw at the beginning of the film. She is haunted by these memories and bringing up her child alone, without the father who left for reasons that are unknown. However, as she comes closer to the aliens and begins to understand their language, she realises that in their time, time is non-linear and she too is now experiencing this through them. In communicating with one of the aliens up close and personal as best she can, she learns that the flash-backs she has been having are in fact flash-forwards and that her future daughters father will leave her after the child is born because he made 'the wrong choice'. The alien reveals that they are here to help mankind by sharing their language, and therefore their perception of time also, so that humanity can in turn help them 3,000 years from now. This is the 'offer weapon/tool' that the aliens were referring to in their scroll. The alien visitors mean no harm at all.

Returning to the base camp which is now being evacuated for fear of alien attack, Banks has another vision of eighteen months hence, when all is good in the world, the aliens have departed and the global leaders are united in celebration marking a new era of sharing, caring and togetherness. Banks siddles up to General Shang (Tzi Ma) of China who originally wanted to nuke 'em out of existence, but he thanks her for changing his mind. When Banks asks him how, he says she called him on his private number, which he then proceeds to give her for the first time. Coming round from her vision, she steals a satellite phone and calls Shang on his private number, and relates to him in fluent Mandarin the very same words that his wife said to him on her death bed - he told her these words in the future and she repeated them to him in the present. At this Shang orders his military might to stand down, prompting all other nations to do likewise, and together all nations share in their learnings gleaned from their respective Shells. At this, all Shells dematerialise and vanish into thin air.

Following this course of events, Donnelly declares his love for Banks, and in a flash-forward vision we learn that he will be father of Banks' daughter, and that he will leave her over 'the choice' she made to have a child even though she knew beforehand that the childs life would be cut short by a rare disease. Banks' motives are that now knowing that time is not linear, that it is better to have a child even for a short time, than never have that child come into existence.

This is a clever, thought provoking film that shares an underlying message of the importance of communication, unity and acceptance. Highly praised also for its stunning visuals, gripping story and great performances, especially from Amy Adams who carries this film, 'Arrival' is the thinking mans Sci-Fil movie that has something to say in todays world and turns the tables on the generally hostile alien contact genre with emotion, passion and a grounded realism that does not rely on heavy CGI, big guns, explosions and rousing end of the world speeches. Well worth the price of your ticket, and you'll need to concentrate on the storyline every step of the way.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-