Alex Garland's interpretation of Van Der Meer's informationist sci fi classic is more perfect every time I see it. What I love most about the movie itself is the performances by the actors. It's difficult material to represent, and serious sci fi is always a challenge in terms of getting the audience to take it seriously. Portman is flawless as usual but Jason Leigh's portrayal of a depressed, chronically ill doctor is also astonishing. None of the actors are slouches and everything they do is convincing.
Van der Meer's story is informationist science fiction par excellence. The informationist novums and tropes come thick and fast, and they're inventive and expertly rendered: Distorted signals; Estranging encoding and decoding ( l'estrangement or la défamiliarisation, or ostranenie); Lots of meta-informational writing (where the writing carries layers of information theoretic concepts and transmits them via fiction).
It's in an elite group of informationist science fiction movie greats: Donnie Darko, Arrival, Source Code. I need to rewrite my 2010 MPhil to include it! ("Informationist Science Fiction and Informationist Science Fiction Theory", Dr Bruce Long, Unviersity of Sydney, 2010.)
I am pleased to see that Rotten tomatoes 88%-ed it, but I think it deserves more.
