10 Sci-Fi Movie Mysteries That Can Never Be Solved

There's so much to unpack in Denis Villeneuve's 2016 film! It takes a completely different approach to an alien invasion film, placing the importance on language and communication as well as presenting the sequence of events in a way that is deeply challenging and thought-provoking.

Amy Adams plays Louise, a renowned linguist who, once able to master the language that the aliens are using, is able to see her entire life play out before her. This concept alone is a head-scratcher, the question which we never get an answer to, is whether knowing the future means you are somehow able to change it.

We see Louise tragically lose her young daughter, and initially we believe these to be flashbacks, however we soon learn that we are seeing events that have not yet happened. In another moment, Louise is able to stop a potentially deadly attack from a Chinese General by telling him the dying words of his wife, something that he himself had told her in the future.

The chain of events surrounding the attack was stopped, however nothing was able to stop Louise from losing her daughter. This isn't necessarily to say that there are inconsistencies in the film's logic, but it does give the audience a lot to ponder afterwards about whether knowledge of the future means you can somehow alter the sequence of events, or perhaps why some events can be altered and others can't as well as the morality of whether things should be changed. We could be pondering this one for a while!