Does it still shimmer? The A.V. Club revisits Annihilation
Alex Garland's Civil War divided critics after storming into theaters last week. How does the director's latest compare to his mind-blowing 2018 sci-fi outing?
Alex Garland’s Civil War may be the movie of the month, but before Kirsten Dunst or Cailee Spaeny ever picked up their cameras to document a crumbling, divided America, Natalie Portman’s Lena set out with a team of three other scientists to explore an equally terrifying phenomenon called The Shimmer in the director’s landmark sci-fi thriller, Annihilation. The chilling 2018 film about a cancerous invasion of the Earth is the type that latches onto your brain and never really lets go—so much so that our staff still had a whole lot to say about it all these years later.
How does the film compare to Civil War and is that ending still as shocking as it was in theaters? Read on for The A.V. Club’s full breakdown.
Can you recall your experience of watching Annihilation for the first time? What were some of your thoughts back then?
Josh Jackson: I’d read the novel by Jeff VanderMeer and had actually run into him at a book festival while the movie was being made. The book is the best kind of insane, but he told me the movie was going to be even weirder, which was hard to believe. I saw it at a pre-release public screening with people who’d won tickets. It was clear the audience had no idea what they were getting into. I loved seeing Vandermeer’s love of the natural world and sci-fi imagination filtered through Alex Garland’s own vision on the big screen. And I loved hearing my fellow audience members WTF comments as they looked shell-shocked leaving the theater.
Drew Gillis: I do distinctly remember the first time I watched Annihilation—it wasn’t exactly my peak. I had left my parents’ house in Maine to go back to my college dorm early because I was bored. I was alone in my dorm and bored again, so I got lightly stoned and watched the movie on my laptop in bed. It was a pretty terrifying experience overall, both because Annihilation is fairly disturbing and because I was veering toward general paranoia. But when I wasn’t getting up to confirm that my door was locked, I was totally hooked. I remember being so taken by the scene when Tessa Thompson’s Josie makes the decision to give into the shimmer and turns into a plant in the shape of a person. It was so grim—this character had been worn down to the point of accepting death—but was also such a beautiful image.
Matt Schimkowitz: I didn’t read VanderMeer’s novel but had long been a fan of Garland. I read The Beach in college, enjoyed Garland’s work with Danny Boyle, particularly Sunshine, and was really impressed by Ex Machina. I was excited about whatever this was going to be, so my wife and I went to see it at our local AMC as a late Valentine’s Day date. We both left traumatized. The actual experience, I would describe as harrowing. At least Ex Machina had a couple of dances and a charismatic Oscar Isaac to break up the dread. Annihilation offered no such oasis. Over the course of the film, I remember a sinking feeling in my stomach and scratching at my bones. The movie tapped into something deep-seated body horrors about myself. When the mutant bear roared Cassie’s scream, I wanted to crawl out of my skin. However, I was also taken by its themes of loss and guilt, how living organisms subsume different aspects of the world around them, and how that can be our demise.
Mary Kate Carr: I was coming off of a big Natalie Portman moment after Jackie and enjoyed Ex Machina so I went by myself to see Annihilation. I remember it was the same weekend as a big winter storm on the East Coast; my parents lost power and my mom texted me worried something had happened because I didn’t answer my phone while I was in the theater. The thing that had happened was I was getting my mind blown! I thought the cast (especially Portman) was amazing, the visuals were stunning, and the story rich and thoughtful. It leans a shade more toward horror than I usually go for, but I’m so glad I didn’t let that stop me from seeing it, because it became one of my favorites. And that score, oh my God, I think about it all the time. There are so many slices of that movie that really stick with you. (I picked up VanderMeer’s series after seeing the movie, and I’m so glad I did; they’re entirely different, and in this case I preferred the experience of going into the movie with no expectations. But the books are haunting in a totally different way.)
Saloni Gajjar: A favorite activity of mine is to go on solo movie dates. I’m sorry to my loved ones, but sometimes it’s a little bit too much fun to not be disturbed while watching something on the big screen. Annihilation was a wild choice for this, but I didn’t know what I was getting into now, did I? I don’t know if MK will agree considering she watched it alone too but it’s possibly one of my favorite theater experiences ever. It takes you on such a visceral journey. Psychological horror, sci-fi, and aliens while also being a beautiful meditation on coping with grief and trying to survive. Yeah, it’s a lot, especially if you haven’t read the book (I have not). But the result is impeccable and impeccably moving. I love how Garland weaves Lena’s self-destructive tendencies with what The Shimmer’s presence is supposed to indicate to the world. I remember thinking about Annihilation non-stop once I got home, and couldn’t stop telling my friends about this strange, creepy masterpiece.
Emma Keates: I tend to have a pretty high tolerance for horror imagery, so when a film manages to break through and get under my skin it automatically earns a place in my list of all time greats. And man did Annihilation get under my skin the first time I watched it—in a way that felt actually literal. I was as distraught by the bear and the alligator as everyone else, but what really fucked me up was the one-two punch about halfway through of that horrifying man-turned-fungus tableau followed by the revelation that, while alive, the dude’s guts were squirming around inside of him like a boa constrictor. I didn’t feel totally right (or sleep all that well) for weeks after that. But I still developed a bit of an unhealthy fixation with Garland’s work for making me feel that way, which strikes me as an exceptionally appropriate response to this film in particular. At some point, we’re all drawn to seek out that which will eventually destroy us.
Cindy White: It’s so interesting, Matt, that you say Annihilation had no charismatic Oscar Isaac to “break up the dread,” because that’s just it, isn’t it? As soon as he shows up at the house after being MIA for a year, you can tell right away that something is very off. Isaac has this way of dimming the light inside him, so the difference between the Kane that we see in flashbacks and the Kane that comes back is so striking. It sets up everything that follows.