"Arrival" and Stoicism

The 2016 movie "Arrival" staring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner is by far one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. From the story, to the cinematography, to the music, everything about that movie is near perfect in my book. In addition to those things, it also has one of the best plot twists of the 21st century, rivaling even the works of M. Night Shyamalan, and this plot twist and it's consequences help reveal some of the philosophical insights of the movie.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*Seriously, go watch the movie if you haven't. It's two hours, and you'll love it. Please don't ruin the movie for yourself by reading ahead.

So, essentially, "Arrival" is an alien movie like no other. The main character, Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is a linguistics professor and works alongside Dr. Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), an astrophysicist, to communicate with aliens who have recently landed on Earth. As the movie progresses, and Lousie begins to understand the alien's written language, she begins to have flashbacks about her daughter Hannah, who we know from an opening scene to have died of cancer.

Basically, Louise realizes their written language is peculiar in the fact that it has no beginning and no end- it's circular. She remarks that to write in "heptapod", the alien language, one must understand time in a nonlinear fashion, since you'd need to know the beginning and end of each sentence simultaneously before writing. As she learns more of the written language, flashbacks of her daughter begin increasing until she finally asks the aliens "who is the girl?"

That's when the audience, and Louise herself, realizes that they weren't flashbacks. They were flash forwards. Her mastery of the alien language allows her to perceive time as they do: non-linearly.

So Louise can see the future. How does this relate to Stoicism? I'm getting there.

Louise begins to become conscious everything that will happen in her life because of the way she now perceives time. She sees that she will marry Ian, and they will raise a beautiful daughter named Hannah. She also, however, sees that Ian will leave her and her daughter will parish at a young age.

Her reaction to this newfound knowledge is what makes her somewhat of a Stoic. The fact she knows what will happen doesn't change the fact that she still has no control over these external events. Just like the stoics say, Louise realizes every hand she will be dealt, good and bad, but what matters is how she chooses to play every hand. She chooses to enjoy her time with her husband and child despite the fact she knows one day it'll all be gone.

Another principle of Stoicism that applies here is the fact that stoics believed that it was the pursuit of the "preferred indifferences" of marriage, friendship and motherhood that mattered, not necessarily the success of said pursuit. For Louise, she knew, in the end, that her husband would leave her and that her daughter would die. But that didn't stop her from pursing those preferred behaviors.

She knew the cards before they were dealt, but she still reacted rationally, pursuing love, friendship, and motherhood even though she knew fate had different plans. And for that, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius would be proud.