Title: Annihilation
Directed by: Alex Garland
Screenplay by: Alex Garland
This is another one of those times when I'm oddly relieved I don't live in America, as this tremendously simplifies the streaming service landscape: everything's on Netflix. Star Trek? Netflix. The Expanse? Netflix. Quirky movies that the studio apparently has no faith in? Netflix.
Annihilation is extremely loosely based on the very Lemmy book I reviewed earlier, and according to my extensive, in-depth, exhaustive research on the film's Wikipedia page, one of the financiers felt it was too nerdy and a deal was struck with Netflix for international distribution. And there was much rejoicing. Their loss is my gain.
Although it shares the same title as the book, this is very much its own thing. Director Alex Garland (Director/Screenwriter of Ex Machina and Screenwriter on Dredd, Never Let Me Go and Sunshine) takes the basic premise--five women scientists go into a weirdo paranormal zone of alien origin called Area X, located on the Florida coast and centered about a lighthouse--and uses it to tell what is essentially a completely different story.
Instead of existential dread and man's disconnect from nature, we get body horror and fear of mortality. Largely, these changes are all to the good, turning the aimless navel-gazing of the book into something as honed and pointed as an alligator's tooth or bear's claw. It's only let down at the end, when the last 15-20 minutes or so go full on 2001-ish psychedelic lights and exploding jellyfish that it kind of loses its footing and goes from OMG to WTF.
The actresses almost all underact their asses off here, angling for existential disassociation that honestly, makes them a bit bland to watch, especially leads Natalie Portman (Luke and Leia's mom) and Jennifer Jason Leigh. There are some zippy scenes between Portman and her husband, played by Oscar Isaacs (Poe Dameron), but once we get in to Area X everyone goes into stunned fish look. About the only one who leaves much of an impression is Goina Rodriguez, as unhinged paramedic Anya.
It's not a movie to watch for the performances, really, but for the atmosphere. Taken together, the movie is not so much scary as unsettling. There's a lot of strangeness going on as the alien zone warps and twists the life of everything inside it, including our five intrepid heroines, as deer grow flowers on their antlers, flowers grow in human shapes, sand is transformed into crystal trees and people's intestines get up and go walkies.
In the limited field of direct-to-Netflix movies, it beats the pants off of Mute, at any rate. It's unique, it's got its own style, a couple of things it wants to show you, and isn't too hung up on action and spectacle. If this is the future of moviegoing, I for one am fully on board.
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