This film was good. It was very slow-paced. The sight of a large shaped object just hanging in the space a few feet from the ground — not going anywhere. Lurking.

This is not an action movie. I’ve been complaining that action movies have too much action, so I’m not going to complain that this film has not enough! But if you’re partial to action movies because you don’t like thinking and reverie, I wouldn’t recommend this. In The Arrival, we, the audience, are put in a situation where we have time and the inclination to think about possible solutions to what’s presented in the film.

Shall “they,” (the characters … but it could be translated to “shall we as a human species”) be friendly and learn to communicate with this mysterious alien form, whose form of communicating with us is a “splatter” on the window? Or should we exterminate them at once?

The hero of this movie is a mild-mannered but ferociously persistent female LINGUIST. Why was a linguist chosen to head operations? Is that ordinary for a movie script? But we see why her skill is so relevant and perhaps why we need to employ people with this kind of skill in real life.

The day may come when humans will need to communicate with an alien species, but the film makes clear that we can use communication skills today to communicate with our brethren in other lands where there are language or cultural barriers. How can we effectively communicate with an alien species when we can’t effectively communicate with other humans on earth? What happens when countries or regions of the world have alternate, competing strategies for dealing with unknown, lurking enigmas of worldwide importance and don’t communicate with each other? This film brings home the importance of this vital question for earthlings.