Annihilation Movie Response

Annihilation

Movie Response

Annihilation tells the story of a group of scientists who enter "the Shimmer," an extraterrestrial quarantined zone that is filled with astonishing and sometimes terrifying mutations.  The story follows Lena, the main protagonist of the movie and one of the scientists to enter the Shimmer. Lena volunteered to join the expedition as her husband, Kane, a soldier who had entered the soldier, was deathly ill and she needed to figure out what had happened to him. 

One of the most interesting things about the Shimmer, in my opinion, is the unique impact it had on the different supporting characters. As the group trekked deeper and deeper into the Shimmer, it slowly but surely began to impact each of them in different ways. In a previous scene, Sheppard, one of the women on the expedition, had filled Lena in on the rough back stories of each member of the group. Ventress, the head psychologist had no friends or family, and later in the film it was revealed that she was dying of cancer. Thorenson, the paramedic, had struggled with addiction and had only recently become sober. Josie, the physicist, had committed act of self harm in the past, not because she wanted to kill herself but because she wanted to feel more alive. Finally, Sheppard revealed to Lena that her daughter had died of leukemia, and as a result of that she felt as though she had failed as a mother. 

Once inside the Shimmer, each of these women were impacted by it in different ways. Unfortunately, Sheppard was the first to die in the Shimmer, and it could be argued that her role in the film was to guide the others through changes or circumstances that they needed to accept; hence, her name. The next to go was Thorenson. The Shimmer gradually took over her body, much like an addiction would, and it showed her that perhaps she wasn't as at peace with her self as she had originally thought herself to be. Eventually, as a result of the Shimmer's hold over her, she "self-imploded" or relapsed, if you will. As I mentioned before, Josie had committed acts of self harm in order to feel more alive, and when it was her time to go, she found peace by letting herself become transformed into a tree. Lastly, Ventress had spent so much time outside of the Shimmer attempting to help others, but actually ended up sending so many to their deaths. Ventress's goal in entering the Shimmer was to make sense of it, and in the end she did just that. She even became a part of the Shimmer, if you will, and played a key role in the character development of Lena. 

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