Review: Annihilation

Annihilation (2018) - Alex Garland

       This is only Alex Garland's second directorial feature, but I feel he's already developed strong visual technique and, more importantly, a densely complicated narrative style. His movies are not exactly easy to parse through, and there are entire scenes that after they've finished you're left thinking, "Well what the hell am I supposed to do with that?" I can certainly see how that might turn some people off, but when it's done as thoughtfully as Alex Garland does it, with such a slow, intense build, by the time we get to the climax, even if I'm narratively unsure what's going to happen, I'm already transfixed, glued to the goddamn screen just hoping that Skeleton Bear doesn't come back to scare the hell out of me. Or maybe I did want it to come back. I don't know, everyone! This movie legitimately crazy as fuck.

       Garland's last movie, Ex Machina (which is fantastic go see it if you haven't and watch it again if you have), is a small, claustrophobic little movie about isolation. In Annihilation, Garland widens his scope, instead looking at an entire new kind of world, some kind of extraterrestrial/other-dimension/dreamscape/nightmare creation. But what keeps the movie so thrilling throughout is even with this bigger, more complex world, Garland keeps the movie and the action still feeling small, still claustrophobic, the movie focusing on only a single recon team of only five women. The plot is straightforward enough: After the mysterious disappearance and assumed death of her Army husband, John Hodgkin Biologist and former Army Scientist Lena (Natalie Portman) grieves. But after the even more mysterious return of her husband, Kane, (Oscar Isaac, acting all stoney-eyed and weird), she is, without choice, taken to Area X, that contains The Shimmer (Sci-fi movies are the best because sentences like that last one, which are objectively ridiculous, make perfect sense!). The Shimmer is an ever growing area of strange, refracting light that started when a meteorite from the unknown crashed into a Lighthouse three years ago. Dozens of teams and drones have been sent in, but nothing has come back until Kane.

       The movie really gets going once the team, led by Dr. Ventress (Holly Hunter) and including a physicist (Tessa Thompson), a geologist (Tuva Novotny), and a paramedic (Gina Rodriguez, who throughout the whole movie I never realized was Jane the Virgin (!)), enter the Shimmer to try and find the lighthouse and hopefully discover what is giving the Shimmer its power. A great deal of why the movie works so well is because of incredible visual style inside this new world. Nothing there exists in the realm of normal nature, and the results are breathlessly beautiful but also terrifying. Everything looks and feels strange inside, including time. The entire movie does a really good job of being viscerally disorienting, from time jumps to shots obfuscated by shimmering light or stained glass. The structure of the narrative is even jarring at times, skipping back and forth from the mission, flashbacks of Lena and Kane's marriage (which, wouldn't ya know, might not be so perfect?!), and a present day interrogation after Lena has apparently also left The Shimmer intact (possibly?). It simultaneously gives us information but also confuses other things we thought we knew.

       Before they go in, Jane the Virgin tells Lena that there were two theories as to why no one came back: Either something in there killed them, or they went crazy and killed each other. As one would guess going into a sci-fi action film such as this, there's a good chance it's both of those things. And that's where the bulk of the second act exists. It's slightly straightforward as far as these type stories happen (scary monsters, people going bonkers under the duress), but like I said before, it all works because of the movie's beautiful design and barely creeping speed, almost too slow for how insane the world around them has become. Even the mental deterioration of our characters is slight and happens slowly (until it doesn't). I think a lot of what will decide people's opinions of this movie is how you react to such a slow build of of intense dread. I can see some people finding it tedious at times, but not me. I loooove me a slow, creepy build up that only incrementally leads to a terrifying mind-fuck of a conclusion. It's basically how all my intimate relationships have gone.

       The performances are quiet but solid. Holly Hunter line reads like she just drank some Dramamine, but it works for the whole disorienting, just-not-quite reality the world creates. There are, however, some moments of clunky dialogue, giving exposition that wasn't really ever necessary. Something along the lines of, "Did she try to kill herself?" "Maybe, or maybe she was actually just trying to feel alive." Faaart noise. And the relationship between Portman and Isaac almost starts to get interesting but it gets a bit sidelined by the third act at the Lighthouse, where things go from very crazy to incredibly very crazy.
       But these are small complaints in another wise visionary sci-fi thriller that creates such mood and atmosphere, both visually and narratively. This movie has amazing, slow-burning dread, splashed with moments of intense terror, violence, and even occasionally emotional resonance. The climax is challenging and strange, and I still haven't made total sense of it. It's been almost 3 hours since the movie let out, and I'm not much closer to making heads or tails of it. And I like that. I like challenging movies. I like seeing things I haven't seen before. And Annihilation does all of those things.

Grade: 8 out or 10 Terrifying Skull Bears