![]() That, however, undermines the moviemaking prowess of writer-director Alex Garland, who creates an atmospheric film with tension intermingling with mystery, and who masterfully provides information as we need them, letting us piece things together along and about the characters. It’s all very confusing, and it sounds kind of silly when I tell it like this. As Kane and Lena embrace, their eyes glow, and the movie ends in a credits scene depicting the merging and splitting of cells. She is reunited with her husband, who is not vomiting blood now, except this may or may not be Kane, but an alien doppelganger. Lena returns to the science facility, where she is locked up and interrogated, telling her story to Benedict Wong. She tricks it into immolating itself with a phosphorous grenade, and the alien proceeded to burn the lighthouse and, somehow, destroy the Shimmer. She reaches the lighthouse, and faces the thing that came with the meteor – an alien creature which began mirroring her form. One by one, the scientists perish, and Lena becomes the only person left. Lena’s secrecy around her husband’s expedition to Area X causes drama. Cassie gets taken and killed by a bear-like creature, while Anya’s sanity began to dwindle. And the humans, well, they’re a-changin’, too, and not for the better. ![]() Plants grow different flowers from the same stalk. Due to the strange properties of the Shimmer, the local plants and wildlife have their DNA refracted to one another, turning everything into mutant hybrids. In Area X, things are bizarre and beautiful. Source: Netflix Ready to science the hell out of the Shimmer It’s a motley crew of people with their own rather dark pasts, led by the mysterious psychiatrist Dr Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), tough-talking Anya (Gina Rodriguez, from Jane the Virgin), meek Josie (Thor Ragnarok’s Tessa Thompson) and sweet Cassie (Tuva Novotny). ![]() Determined to find out what really happened to Kane and hoping, perhaps, to save him, Lena joins an expedition of women scientists to venture forth towards the lighthouse. Turns out, her husband was part of an expedition into Area X, a large plot of land behind what’s called the Shimmer, a translucent wall that originated and grew from a meteor that crashed into a lighthouse. Before she knew it, they’re both taken to and locked up in a science facility. Then he pops back home, 12 months later, except now he’s weird and distant. She’s rightfully sad, a little angry perhaps. She’s an ex-military biologist whose military husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) went missing during a mission and presumed KIA. First, though, I’m going to tell you what the film is about.Īnnihilation is about Lena, played by Natalie Portman. So, really, I can only tell you what Annihilation means to me. That, perhaps, is part of the beauty of this film. You’re meant to find your own answer, if not accept all of them.Īnnihilation is the same, in that each of us will find a different meaning. ![]() It’s a biblical play as much as it is about the relationship of an artist and his muse (or, if you like, Darren Arronovsky’s own relationship with his star and then-girlfriend Jennifer Lawrence ). In fact, in its own mad brilliance, it’s one of those film that is made up entirely of allegories. Mother!, directed by Darren Arronovsky, also has multiple meanings, and not one of them is the One True Meaning. I often think of 2017’s Mother! when I broach this subject. When we talk about films like Annihilation, we need to accept that some films have multiple meanings. That’s probably not the answer you’re looking for. And what it means may differ from me and you. What’s the meaning of Alex Garland’s 2018 science-fiction movie Annihilation ? A lot of things, actually.
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