This post discusses the plot of “Annihilation,” insomuch as the plot actually matters, which is debatable.
I can describe “Annihilation,” which is, after all, a movie I have seen, rather than a mysterious phenomenon that warps the minds of those who enter it. Garland’s adaptation of the first book in Jeff VanderMeer’s trilogy follows Lena, a biologist who learns about Area X after her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac), returns from an exploratory mission to the region both profoundly changed and seriously ill long after Lena had presumed him dead. She joins the next team to go in, headed by Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and made up of Anya (Gina Rodriguez), Cass (Tuva Novotny) and Josie (Tessa Thompson), in the hopes of understanding what happened to Kane during his year away. What she discovers exceeds all of her expectations and upends the laws of nature she knew to be fixed.
Even though everything I wrote in the preceding paragraph is strictly true, it feels wholly inadequate to me, and honestly besides the point. Yes, Lena learns things about how Area X functions, and why the plants and animals that she finds there seem to be evolving and changing in strange ways. Yes, both she, and we uncover disturbing details about Kane’s fate. But “Annihilation” is a profound and terrifying movie precisely because it’s about an encounter with something that defies comprehension, and that operates according to none of the rules or known impulses that we as humans know how to respond to.
Science fiction and horror movies often function in similar ways, which is why the two genres so often crossbreed to such great success. Something seems awry, or something inexplicable happens, posing an immediate danger to our characters and a more fundamental danger to what we believe we know to be true about the world. Our heroes investigate, sometimes cautiously, sometimes intrepidly. And when they find out what is happening to them, they are either saved or doomed. Either way, our sense of order, if not control, is restored: The world makes sense again, even if it does so in dismaying fashion.
In some respects, “Annihilation” proceeds like a fairly typical example of both genres. Lena and her colleagues use their scientific and investigative skills to understand more about what is taking place in Area X. The pressures of their investigation and the strange environment in which they are operating take a toll on them, undermining their camaraderie and making them vulnerable.
Ultimately, though, the movie refuses to render the world comprehensible again. Every step forward and every new piece of information render the world inside Area X, and its implications for all human knowledge, more mystifying. In “Annihilation,” survival is less a matter of mastery and rationalization than it is of profound acceptance. People who hope to wrestle the phenomenon of the Shimmer into something they can understand are doomed to bafflement or madness. It’s those who are willing to surrender who are best equipped to survive or evolve.
Modern movies, perhaps as a reflection of modern society, don’t have much truck with the sometimes-twin emotions of awe and terror. That makes sense: A lot of the things that our ancestors were powerless to explain and address have been assessed and conquered. We know why eclipses and earthquakes happen, and how to treat disease. The world feels smaller and more manageable to us. That’s often to the good: No one should have to die from folk healing or be driven insane with fear over natural phenomena. But at the same time, I sometimes wonder if our sense of certainty renders us more vulnerable to the unexpected. I don’t know that our predecessors would be as surprised and wounded by the ascension of a mad king as contemporary Americans are by an unexpected election result.
“Annihilation” is the first movie I’ve seen in a very long time that is dedicated to restoring our senses of awe and terror. It is full of extremely effective horrors that are frightening not because they are gory, or even particularly because they make you jump, though some of them will. Rather, they are unsettling because they frequently pair pain with beauty, or competence with a sense of fundamental despair.
“Annihilation” is not a movie that is designed to make you or its characters feel better. Nor is it intended to make you feel worse in a way that reinforces a valuable political point or an important social phenomenon. Movies that do those things can be immensely valuable. That’s simply not Garland’s project here. Instead, “Annihilation” is about making you feel small, while also using beauty and mystery to draw you to the thing that emphasizes your smallness and your fear.
That’s not a comfortable place for a lot of us to spend time, and in fact, the “Annihilation” screening I attended was sometimes punctuated by derisive laughter. But it turns out it was a place I needed to be, at least for the two hours I spent watching “Annihilation.”
Read more from Act Four:
