Annihilation does everything it can to side-step mainstream expectations. Distributed by Paramount Pictures and streamed by Netflix, this hybrid tentpole sci-fi oddly reflects the changing face of cinema. Adapted and directed by Alex Garland, who made the contentious and provocative Civil War, he dissects another complex problem with his cautionary tale on genetic evolution. One that comes across like a combination of Walter Hill’s Soutern Comfort and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. With shades of Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris in the off-kilter relationship between Lena (Natalie Portman), and her military husband Kane (Oscar Isaac), Annihilation also trades in shades of grey.
Surrounded by people wrapped in head-to-toe hazmat suits, Lena is the only surviving member of a squad that went into something called the shimmer. An environmental anomaly that has created its own independent eco-system, where gene pools mix freely, and boundaries are limitless. Alongside Doctor Ventress (Jennifer Jason-Leigh), Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez), Cass Shepperd (Tova Novotny), and Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson) – Lean ventures beyond the perimeter. Kane has only just come back and seems to have left something of himself behind. Their goal is to reach the lighthouse, a central point of origin from which all these aberrations have arisen.
What unfolds instead is akin to an otherworldly expedition into the unknown. Where this five strong force of academics become enlightened, enchanted, and systematically fall foul of this phenomenon. That being said, this is not uncharted ground for Alex Garland, who was behind Ex Machina – where debates around artificial intelligence and organic human emotions reached their own crossroad. Annihilation carries the same detached tonal indifference, where characters interact, but barely register each other. This feels especially true of an intimate relationship that plays out between Lena, Kane and Daniel (David Gyasi) – a colleague she is seeing behind her husband’s back.
However, where Annihilation really shines is in the evolutionary visuals that define life inside the shimmer. Without the aid of any outside communication, this intrepid band of explorers begin absorbing the atmosphere through their skin. Not only is the world around them morphing minute by minute, but they are undergoing internal changes too. This sense of internal evolution that seems terrifying at first, begins getting under their skin and altering the attitude of each in turn, whether that idea of change through osmosis, ties into a broader exploration of genetic mutation as a whole. As with virtually every Alex Garland movie ever made, there are bigger issues at play beneath the surface. Meaning that whether audiences agree with his ideals and ideas or not, there is never a shortage of discussion after the fact. Something that makes Annihilation essential viewing, especially when conflicting viewpoints converge, and conversations happen.
Annihilation is available to stream on Netflix now.