Neil Doshi

It can be called a masterpiece. Denis Villeneuve has consistently proved to be this genius who truely loves his craft and is one of the best film makers ever. Nailing the visuals and writing and casting and story and production, every aspect of this criminally underviewed movie screams perfect. I understand the criticism about the pacing but Denis is extremely confident and master at his craft and the relatively slow pacing works for these kinds of movies. There are 2 things, slow and boring, this can be slow, but not boring. My guess is Roger Deakins should just put this movie in his résumé to let people know what he can do. A February 2018 article broke my heart when I read it. It said that Denis said he won't make another art house movie like this due to the box office response. This is depressing and a loss for the film industry and for the people world wide who revere these kind of movies. Its disappointing that Nolan is so loved and Denis suffers this kind of fate. Denis Villeneuve is one of my favourite film makers and always will be, it just hurts to know we won't get to see more movies like this.

Adam driver stole the show. Movie was technically good. Enjoyed it.

The direction and editing didn't do true justice to the movie. The emotional notes came natural with the story with the mute lead played brilliantly by Hawkins but the moments weren't held properly. E.g. the part where Hawkins tries to convince Jenkins about why she wants to save him was quite bland from a film perspective. It felt lazy. There was a natural poetic magic but the direction and the way it was shot was not upto the mark,etc. Many things didn't make sense and weren't explained very well, e.g. when the amphibian runs from Jenkins' home, it would have taken some time for Hawkins' character to take Jenkins'call, then go home by a bus, then find the amphibian, and when she finds him, he is in a theatre, with no one in it but the film is still playing and for all that time no one saw this creature??! And they even go back to the home and still no one notices them???, Etc. There was a lot of loss of opportunity.