A little more on Arrival:
Was she the leading linguist in the world? Or just the best one the military could get their hands on and who would cooperate? The former is certainly less ordinary. But the leading woman was also not some super model of beauty, and an amazing cook, and an athletic dynamo, and and and …. as all too often not-old female stars are portrayed. She has exactly 2 hair styles. Her make up is subdued. She wears ordinary clothes. She tires. She has bad dreams. She has questions. She’s not super-human. The ordinariness was more my wife’s view, but I mostly agree.
I took her as at least one of the top cadre in the language world – in most fields there’s always room for argument over who’s the best.
In the larger picture, I suppose it depends on how the movie focuses your attention. I thought this was clearly an “intellectual puzzle” movie, so I only paid enough attention to her appearance so I could identify her from scene to scene. I suppose she wasn’t an outstandingly beautiful woman in this movie – but put her in Moulin Rouge! and perhaps she’d have been a knock out. But making her that in Arrival would have detracted from the planned impact of the movie.
