There’s a very real risk that the circumstances of Annihilation’s delivery to its British and European audience – distributed via Netflix rather than enjoying the theatrical release it’s been granted in the USA – will detract from the fact that here we have something increasingly rare in sci-fi cinema; a genuinely original, inventive, intelligent, thought-provoking proper science-fiction film. Let’s not concern ourselves too much with the fact that this wonderfully cinematic film can only be enjoyed in the comfort of our own homes for now (it’s sure to hit the arthouse cinema circuit) rather than on the big screen with all its attendant bells-and-whistles and relish Alex Garland’s audacious achievement. Annihilation, adapated by Garland from Jeff VanderMeer’s novel, is the best science-fiction film since 2016’s Arrival and in many ways it’s a solid companion piece. Where Arrival dealt with themes of communication and language, Annihilation strikes right at the very core of humanity, the achingly-cliched concept of what it means to be human and, perhaps more pertinently, what’s the point of being human and what humanity, form and existence really mean. Transformers this ain’t…
If Garland impressed with his measured artificial intelligence drama Ex Machina in 2015 then he dazzles with Annihilation, a story told on a much larger scale but which manages to be just as intimate and personal and, like much of Garland’s work, concerned equally with how human beings cope in extraordinary and unthinkable circumstances. At a secret location identified only as Area X a mysterious, glistening electromagnetic field, presumed to be of extra-terrestrial origin and referred to as “the shimmer” is slowly spreading and expanding. Military teams have ventured beyond “the shimmer” but none have returned – save an Army Special Forces soldier named Kane (Isaac), husband of cellular biologist scientist Lena (Portman). But Kane has changed; he’s listless and monosyllabic and suddenly becomes extremely ill. On the way to the hospital Lena and Kane are intercepted by a government security force and taken to Area X. As Kane’s condition continues to deteriorate, Lena joins another expedition into the shimmer, led by Dr Ventress (Leigh) – but what they find behind the shimmering veil challenges their understanding of life itself as they encounter strange and horrific mutations, wondrous reimagined life forms and, at the corrupted lighthouse which lies at the centre of the shimmer, an entirely new form of intelligence which is capable of mimicking and replicating the human form.
Annihilation is an extraordinary and powerful movie which largely eschews the wham-bam conventions of its genre and leads its audience down a rather more cerebral path. There’s an impressive sense of stateliness about the narrative as Lena and her team leave the world they know and understand behind and enter an environment which has become distorted and transfigured into something which they recognise but can’t fully comprehend. Once inside “the shimmer” the team become immediately disorientated. Whole chunks of time become forgotten and meaningless and when they are attacked by a ferocious shark/alligator hybrid they realise that the shimmer is acting on organic life as a prism distorts and refracts light. Later the group finds video evidence of a member of a previous lost expedition whose innards are capable of independent mobility and later still a monstrous bear-like creature savages one of the group, only to return later with the ability – it’s one of the film’s genuinely hair-raising moments – to replicate the terrified voice of its victim. By the time we reach the final act the film becomes a weird, psychedelic fever dream of blazing light, glowing humanoid shapes and abstract glass-like constructs which have sprung up in the area surrounding the compromised lighthouse. It’s an unsettling and discomfiting sequence which takes us away from anything and everything that we understand as the real world, offering up an alternative which is truly inhuman and incomprehensible as we’re cast adrift in this strange, almost hallucinogenic other-world landscape.
Annihilation is almost certainly a film which will demand and reward repeated viewings. Garland has crafted a genre film which won’t appeal across the board – apparently poor test screenings sealed the film’s fate as “too intellectual” for a popcorn-chewin’ multiplex crowd and in truth it genuinely is a difficult and challenging movie. It’s also pretty close to a masterpiece (it over-reaches itself visually once or twice and Leigh’s curiously casual and laidback performance is a little off-putting), a film which, palmed off on Netflix or not, is sure to figure highly in any serious sci-fi cinema fan’s end-of-year Top Ten. Remarkable.
ANNIHILATION / CERT: N/A / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: ALEX GARLAND / STARRING: NATALIE PORTMAN, JENNIFER JASON LEIGH, OSCAR ISAAC, GINA RODRIQUEZ, TESSA THOMPSON / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (NETFLIX)
