Yet there is more to their inquiry than simply a thirst for knowledge. They’re the wildly optimistic team of nerds you send in after all the Hicks’ and space marines never came back from LV-426. Rather than trying to rescue or kill anything particular within the Shimmer-a rainbow-colored blob engulfing Southeastern American marshland-their quest is one of knowledge and basic understanding of the unknown.
One of the most appealing aspects of Annihilation is that it follows five women, and scientists at that, who are entering a highly dangerous area out of a sense of intense curiosity.
In fact, the film is really about two mysteries: What is the Shimmer, and why would someone dare enter it? To understand the former, we must first consider the latter. However, the film digs deeper than its premise about a woman entering an inexplicable bubble to save her husband’s life. On the surface, it reflects many of the kind of John Carpenter-esque ‘80s sci-fi thrillers that probably inspired Garland in his youth. As we examine that troubling conclusion, and what it means in the larger context of a biologist trapped inside of an ecological and genetic blender, we must take a step back and consider what the movie Annihilation is really about. It is a perversely profound film and one that demands to be unpacked in many a conversation after it’s over. In an age of straightforward superheroics in which good conquers evil, here is a genre movie that strives for the mystique of 2001 and the ambiguity of any nightmarish art installation that might mirror what the Shimmer does to your body after the guts are cut open. That ending to Alex Garland’s Annihilation, in which Natalie Portman faces her double, her shimmering duplicate, and seemingly wins yet doesn’t as her eyes swim with a luminous ripple, is by design a difficult, provocative, and defiant conclusion. Eyeless though it may be, and blankly inhuman as it mimics each of her movements-her nods, her stumbles, and even her violence-it nevertheless stares back at her. This article contains MAJOR Annihilation spoilers.
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