Let me tell you a story. It starts in my junior year of high school in AP English Lit, when my teacher, Mr. Lambert, announced that he wanted us to read something more interesting than those musty old AP books. He pulled out a book called The Beach by Alex Garland, which only vaguely related to the course material. It was a captivating and quick read, and I was very grateful to have a break from Austen and Shakespeare, wonderful as they may be. Curious about this Alex Garland fellow, I Googled him and saw that he was the writer and director of the movie Ex Machina, which I had wanted to see for a long time. Then, sometime later, I saw a BuzzFeed article (this one, in fact) about the movie Sunshine, which was written by—you guessed it!—Alex Garland. That got my attention, but what really prompted me to watch Sunshine was the fact that Chris Evans was in it. What can I say? I love that guy.
Sunshine left me crying at a blank screen all alone in my house, my mind reeling from what I had just watched. (Side note: please watch this with people or in the daytime because there was a point where I genuinely thought a ghost was haunting my TV.) It sucked me down a bit of an Alex Garland rabbit hole: I quickly watched Ex Machina (is there anything more iconic than Oscar Isaac saying “I’m gonna tear up the fucking dance floor, dude, check it out”?), and when Garland’s next movie, Annihilation, was announced, I knew I had to see it. The cast—Natalie Portman, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Oscar Isaac—only made me more excited for this movie.
Since I’m one of those annoying people who try to read books before seeing their movie adaptations, I also knew I had to read Jeff VanderMeer’s “Southern Reach Trilogy,” which consists of Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance. The books jump around with narrators and time periods, but they all center around Area X. Area X is an unspecified part of the United States (but implied to possibly be Florida) where, one day, an invisible barrier sprang up, engulfing the lighthouse and town inside. Annihilation follows an unnamed biologist who’s part of the 12th expedition into Area X; her husband was part of the 11th expedition, and he returned, but soon died of cancer. The expeditions are overseen by the Southern Reach agency, which has some shady business going on, but you should read for yourself because these books suck you in and spit you out as a changed person.
Alright, so: the movie. I dragged my friends to go see it over spring break, and while there were times in the movie theater where I was physically uncomfortable (do not go if you’re squeamish), I would rank Annihilation as one of my top five movies. It’s very different from the book in ways it had to be if it was to be a good movie. The characters get names—“the biologist” becomes Lena, her husband becomes Kane, etc.—and become more likable, for the most part. The Southern Reach plays a smaller role. The movie dispenses with the tower and the Crawler, it adds characters and creatures, it changes the ending. Garland tweaked, deleted and rewrote a lot of things, and the movie is better for it.
What stays the same, though, is the unknowability of Area X (or the “Shimmer,” as it’s called in the movie). I found myself flipping back through pages and trying to rewind the movie in my head in order to connect unconnectable dots, to scour for clues I missed, to try and dissect something that refuses to be examined. I can’t make sense of Annihilation because it transcends what we know, and while it’s frustrating to accept, that’s what makes it beautiful.
Annihilation got rave reviews (it’s not just me) but hasn’t made a lot of money in the United States. It didn’t even get a theatrical release in other countries because apparently Paramount was scared that the film would alienate audiences since it was “too intellectual.” As a result, it was released through Netflix overseas. Really? Really? Could you be more insulting?
Box office failure is another similarity that Annihilation and Sunshine share besides the screenwriter. Both are considered flops, though they had every reason to succeed. The wonderful Snowpiercer (another Chris Evans movie) and the stunning Blade Runner 2049 barely made dents at the box office; in fact, a certain Harvey Weinstein commanded that Snowpiercer only receive a limited US release, despite it being a huge success in South Korea, director Bong Joon-ho’s country. Good ole Harvey wanted to add some stupid monologues and make the movie dumber, à la original-theatrical-release Blade Runner. I hate that man.
Sure, we do have movies like Ex Machina and Arrival (directed by Blade Runner 2049’s Denis Villeneuve), who make a splash, but they weren’t presented as blockbusters. They knew they were niche movies. What sets the films mentioned above apart is that they should have been moneymakers. They shouldn’t be niche movies, and this article shouldn’t be a niche article.
If you browse the comment section on almost any Facebook post about the latest sequel or reboot coming up, you’ll doubtless see angry fanboys ranting that Hollywood doesn’t release anything new. But then something like Annihilation comes up and the public just ignores it, and so Hollywood goes back to making sequels and reboots. Even if movies like Pacific Rim: Uprising don’t do well, at least they do better than Snowpiercer, right? With the onslaught of big, blockbuster franchises (most of which I adore, don’t get me wrong), studios trained audiences to expect somewhat less meaty stuff. When audiences responded happily, they, in turn, trained the studios to continue churning out Fast and Furious movies. It’s a vicious cycle. So even though audiences are definitely smart enough to see Snowpiercer and Blade Runner 2049 and Annihilation, they don’t, because they—we—have been conditioned to expect something else.
Streaming services don’t help. I love Netflix just as much as the next person, but it (along with Amazon, Hulu, and others) threatens the life of movie theaters. People want to see a Marvel movie on the big screen, but not necessarily a weird sci-fi thing. (For the record, I think that Annihilation is something that really should be experienced on as big a screen and with as best a sound system as possible. It’s visceral.) People can watch good movies without leaving the comforts of home, so why go out to the theater? This means that studios are scared to put out big-budget originals like Annihilation so that in turn affects marketing. I wouldn’t have known Annihilation existed if I wasn’t a big dweeb who spends her free time reading up on obscure movie news. It’s no wonder it flopped.
I’m not sure how—or if—we can fix this problem. Some people might say it’s not a problem at all, but I’m scared what will happen if beautiful movies like these keep getting passed by. They deserve better than that. We deserve better than that. Let’s prove Harvey wrong (again). Please go and see these movies. Find your Alex Garland and tumble headfirst down that rabbit hole. There’s a whole beautiful world waiting for you.
Image Credit: Feature, 1, 2, 3