Louise Experiences Past and Future Together: Making Sense of Arrival’s Timeline, Explained Through the Movie’s Twist
The Twist Changes Louise’s Perspective
At the end of Arrival, Louise can perceive time as the aliens do: without separating past, present and future. The apparent scenes of her daughter are not memories of an earlier life; they are events she is experiencing before they occur in the usual sequence.
Louise learns that Hannah will live for 12 years. Her foreknowledge lets her affect events in the present, but the film describes this ability as both a blessing and a curse. What she knows complicates how she experiences her own life.
A Timeline Happening Together
Arrival’s structure differs from films that move between distinct periods such as Pulp Fiction or Memento. The events are happening at the same time in Louise’s perception, even though the audience initially reads some of them as flashbacks.
The opening gives viewers clues that the scenes involving Hannah have not happened yet for Louise. As she learns to understand the aliens’ communication, the audience is also encouraged to reconsider what it means to experience time.
The Linear Order Of Events
For characters who do not share Louise’s perception, events remain sequential. The timeline covered by the film starts with the aliens arriving on Earth, continues through Louise’s efforts to communicate with them, and ends with Hannah’s death about 13 years later.
The article first identifies the director as Denis Villeneuve, but later refers to him as David Villeneuve. It also says Louise shares Shang’s wife’s dying words in Mandarin, changing his plans and the course of the story.
Key points
- Louise’s apparent memories of Hannah are glimpses of events she has not yet experienced sequentially.
- The aliens’ language gives Louise access to a perception of time in which moments occur together.
- Other characters follow a linear timeline, from the aliens’ arrival to Hannah’s death about 13 years later.
- The article gives two different first names for the director: Denis and David Villeneuve.