Review: Annihilation

"We're all damaged goods here," one character says in Annihilation, the film adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer's spare novel that also marks the sophomore directorial outing from screenwriter Alex Garland. As with his impressive first effort, Ex Machina, Annihilation deals with the often deceptive fabric of reality within the more Kubrickian corners of the sci-fi genre, but with more emphasis on the conflict between self-destruction and salvation. By no means a perfect film, it is nonetheless an often unsettling and memorable viewing experience.

Natalie Portman stars as Lena, a cellular biology professor and former U.S. Army soldier whose life has been in unfocused stasis since the departure of her husband Kane (Oscar Isaac), who has been presumed dead or missing in action during a top-secret mission in a location deemed Area X, which has been overtaken by some sort of electromagnetic field named "the Shimmer." One can only imagine Lena's terror and confusion when, a year after his disappearance, Kane arrives home, remembering nothing, and suddenly going into multiple organ failure. Looking for either a cause or a cure for Kane's mysterious malady, Lena volunteers for the latest mission, which will be led by psychologist Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh).

Apart from the chilly Ventress, the other team members - comprised of paramedic Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez), physicist Josie Radeck (Tessa Thompson), and geologist Cass Sheppard (Tuva Novotny) - are unaware of Lena's connection to Kane, who is the only person who has managed to come back from the Shimmer. Anya's theory is there must be something within the Shimmer that either makes people go crazy or kill each other, and what they discover once within the dense jungle both confirm and belie that premise. Once inside, the women, like those before them, lose their sense of time. What felt like hours turn out to be days and strange anomalies abound such as an alligator-shark hybrid and plants that seem trapped in an endless cycle of mutation. Form is corrupted, echoed and duplicated. DNA, including their own, is refracted. Yet the women have started on this path and it seems all they can do is follow it to see what's at its end.

The other characters are not afforded as much depth as Portman's Lena. Though this may be due to Garland adhering to VanderMeer's spare prose, it does lend a certain predictability when the body count starts rising. The supporting actresses do well enough to carve out some depth to make impressions - Rodriguez may have the slight edge over the others if only because Anya is a marked change from her Jane the Virgin television persona - but their fine work doesn't offset certain parts of the film from treading into been-there, done-that territory. It may have benefited the film more had Portman's Lena been the only entrant into the Shimmer since she is the focal point of the narrative and Portman delivers a tremendously compelling performance as Lena begins to question her sanity.

Annihilation's genuine highlight is its wordless climax which, without giving too much away, finds the film's themes of confronting one's own sometimes guilelessly destructive self in full-bore. Both terrifying and oddly beautiful, it's a moment that elevates the rest of the film and leaves one deliberately in the throes of ambiguity.

Annihilation

Directed by: Alex Garland

Written by: Alex Garland; based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer

Starring: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, Oscar Isaac, Benedict Wong, Sonoya Mizuno, David Gyasi