Two thirds into Alex Garland's large studio debut features the conspicuous appearance of Rebecca Skloot's novel, The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks. A remarkable document of how one's genetics helped provide the impetus for developments beyond what was thought possible with oncological research. A dive into how diversity serves to better alter the genetic landscape. Not unlike race politics in America, the story of genetics and medical science's role in understanding manners of societal change, remain an integral part of the nation's grander story. And in utilizing the initial book in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, it isn't too far a reach to consider the role of America's story in the telling of modern America, and it's reckoning with the natural changes only humans seem primed to ignore. 

Debriefed behind glass by a number of men in hazmat suits, cellular biologist and professor, Lena(Natalie Portman), finds herself unable to properly account for a great deal of lost time after being retrieved. Only certain details remain, but a sense of missing time persists as she is asked to recall what she knows prior to being found. She is also asked about a party of people she has been in the company of, but can offer very little as to what happened.

Prior to all of this, Lena had long been living quietly in the shadow of deep loss due to the disappearance of her husband. Relegating weekends toward repainting her bedroom aimlessly, as if one year since her military life and love prior to her educator one continues to exist within an inert cycle. Cohorts, cannot seem to reach her. The loss of Kane, a soldier last assigned to a classified post so secret, that even he could't grant much of a hint to her beyond hemisphere. Still haunted by these memories, matters suddenly take a jarring turn when he seemingly returns, and doesn't seem to be quite alright.

It isn't long before Lena and Kane are brought into a top secret military installation, where the husband is now in an unstable condition due to organ failure. Lena, desperate for answers meets the secretive Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who explains to her that what has happened to her husband is something just outside the compound that defies scientific explanation. A few few hundred yards from the Southern Reach, lies The Shimmer. An environmental anomaly that seems to contain all that is within the southern swamp and coastal area, and it is continuing to expand. Having sent in several military missions into the almost bioluminescent dome, and Kane being the only "survivor", Ventress soon reveals that she intends to send in a small team of women scientists deeper into the territory, to figure out what exactly happened to these groups. Lena, feeling a need to do this for Kane, volunteers to join, without letting anyone else from her group know of her connection to the Shimmer's only living survivor.

And it isn't very long before the nature of the phenomenon reveals itself in increasingly gorgeous, yet deeply unsettling ways.

Garland, working from the first manuscript by VanDerMeer expands upon his now familiar brand of sneaky, slow burn, character-centric science fiction, and fashions something that borders on overload, but offers up enough thematic roughage to make up for it. Not satisfied at all with an abundance of cheap scares, the film attempts to hew in tone to Garland's stellar Ex-Machina. And even when it attempts to maintain that piece's more intimate nature, the execution at times feels a might looser, most likely due to the source material's more unwieldy elements. We are rarely given a great deal about the team Lena and Ventress join, save for hints that every member is a survivor of sorts. There is compelling support work here via teammates, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez, and Tuva Novotny, but it does feel like a classic need to streamline for pacing. And if anything, this is where the whole falters. Considering pre-release news about casting controveries, and Netflix deals, Annhilation at times feels like a work hindered by a lack of faith outside the director and crew. Because everyone here, brings their best possible game regardless of these obstacles.

Even so, Annhilation's canvas remains full of some of the most arresting, and eerie painterly images in a large scale creepfest in a great, long while. Cinematographer, Rob Hardy's work here is a quantum leap forward for the Ex-Machina DP, offering up a startling mix of natural light, intense greens, and a prism theme within the Shimmer, that operates like an ever present Lisa Frank nightmare. The design of what lies within, feels like an amalgamation of decades' worth of alien and biological horrors. Every time one wants to cry Giger, the film goes out of its way to create a signature, almost fungal feel. The very notion of life out of control permeates every moment within the Shimmer. And what may actually be happening inside, is both viscerally frightening, yet thematically beautiful.

Performances across the board are magnetic while Portman and Isaacs present a credible emotional anchor. Most impressive being Tessa Thompson, who's Josie not only grants us meaty exposition, but becomes an avatar of sorts for the mysterious environment that surrounds the cast. And Tuva Novotny, who effortlessly embodies empathy in a uniquely understated piece of acting work. And then there's an even more enigmatic than usual Leigh, who takes Ventress, beyond the archetypical "lead scientist with a secret" role, turning her from merely a foil, and into a potential martyr to science while our understanding of it is endlessly turned asunder.

Which plays perfectly into what seems to be Garland's greater, seething, and unflattering thesis within ANNHILATION. That for all our collective knowing, there are means that remain elusive. Means which could themselves be changing the world around us, unnoticed, unabated. Combine this with the tale of Lacks, which finds itself at the nexus of generations of both scientific understanding and racial relations. Whether we are cognizant of it or not, the universe, the world, nature, people - these are eternally changing constants while humanity finds itself eternally at odds with what it understands itself to be. Fear, and resistance being that necessity to fight off an encroaching threat. But what if not every threat was not malevolent? What if what we're actually fighting, is the inevitable? Fear of disease? Mortality? Decay? Then ally such fear to the daily lives we lead, and how we as a species, very often intentionally trip up ourselves in the name of something new to come in. What we often determine to be self-destruction, may in fact be a reaction to an inevitability within us as part of the natural world. A response to a denial we have long sought desperately to ignore. The noise of a deeper calling, but one we fear for what it means to the lives we at times believe we are dealt. 

One only need take in the final choices of the film to consider the whys for ourselves. What do we sacrifice of ourselves to co-exist? Do we even have to? If so, what are we losing?

ANNHILATION, invites us to ponder.