Five stars

Dir: Denis Villeneuve

With: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker

Runtime: 116 minutes

WHAT an Oscar run-up Amy Adams is having. After lighting up the big screen in Nocturnal Animals, she is brilliant in Denis Villeneuve’s science fiction drama Arrival. Every other contender out there take note: the star of American Hustle, The Master, and The Fighter is going into this awards season looking like a stone cold champ.

Arrival is the story of a broken woman finding purpose and solace in worlds beyond our world. I know what you’re thinking. Sandra Bullock. 2013. Gravity. Jaw-dropping visuals. A heroine boldly going, etc. To some extent there are similarities, not least in having a heroine rather than a hero.

But where Gravity was a 91-minute rocket blast of a picture, Arrival is a much slower burn affair. Do not let that fool you or put you off. Such is Adams’ performance, and Villeneuve’s talent for telling a story, Arrival has the power of, well, gravity, to pin you to the cinema seat. It is a dazzling exercise in story-telling, one that sends you spinning into such deep thought that you should be careful going back out into the street afterwards lest you walk into a lamp-post. Never let it be said film critics are not concerned for an audience’s health and safety.

The first sign of Villeneuve’s confidence is presenting the viewer with a jaw-dropping event within the first ten minutes. UFOs have landed at locations around the world. The objects hang there in the sky, menacing in their silence. Who are they? What are they? Why have they come to Earth? Contact has to be made, but how?

Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) from the US military is given the job of trying to answer these questions on behalf of America. Elsewhere, other countries are trying to do the same. Weber calls on noted linguist Dr Louise Banks, who helped military intelligence out before when it came to translating audio from terrorists. The trouble here, however, is that the aliens are unintelligible. They have no recognisable language in which humans can communicate with them.

Joining Dr Banks is a scientist, played by Jeremy Renner. Between them, the colonel, the linguist, the man of science and a CIA agent (Michael Stuhlbarg) need to get the aliens talking. With patience running out around the world, and fear rising, they have to be quick about it.

Villeneuve (helmer of Prisoners, Sicario, and currently filming Blade Runner 2049), balances this thrilling race against time with the story of Dr Banks and what brought her to this place. There is no-one better than Adams at playing a character who looks like bone china but is cast-iron strong in will. Through a series of flashbacks a picture emerges of a woman for whom the world should hold no more charm yet who is determined to save it nevertheless.

Although telling a weird and wonderful, out of this world story, what is remarkable is the quiet, no fuss way Villeneuve goes about his business. Everything is kept as low key as possible. Yes, we see what is inside the UFOs, but they are not given half as much time, or are half as interesting, as the little humans running around trying to make sense of them.

Whitaker, Stuhlbarg and Renner provide first-class support to Adams, where they can get a look in, but this is first and last a star vehicle for her, and what a performance she delivers as a Ripley with her heart torn in two.

It is just as well she is so watchable. As Villeneuve piles on the flashbacks and ramps up the tension, he runs a very real risk of losing the audience. There is such a thing as being too clever-clever in trying to tell a tale, and in the cool light of daytime it is possible to pick holes in Arrival. But where is the fun in that? More importantly, Adams’ character is so captivating it is impossible not to care what happens to her. Baffling or not, we are with her, whatever happens, right to the end.