Warning: This review contains spoilers-a-go-go.
The first time I watched Annihilation (2018), I’d read the book only a month before, and couldn’t stop enumerating the differences between the two. The stories diverge almost instantly, with significant changes to both character and plot. In the end, I came away with an appreciation of its atmosphere, tone, and visual design, but was too distracted by changes to the book to really take in the plot.
The second time I saw the film, however, the theme of trauma, specifically inherited trauma, immediately clicked into place. From the first few shots of the film, director Alex Garland explores the way trauma shapes us emotionally, physically, and reverberates throughout our environments.
Our protagonist, the biologist Lena (Natalie Portman), describes the origin of life to her students, beginning with the first division of a single-celled organism, and this is portrayed visually as a violent, traumatic experience. We see microscope footage of cells splitting, and the cells are unusually expressive: as the cell divides, hair-like cilia reach out desperately from the two halves, seeming to be trying to reunite itself. Being split in two, divided against oneself, is the most elementary description of trauma there is. It also echoes Plato’s theory of soulmates: the brutal split of a complete, androgynous being into separate men and women, leaving humanity in a perpetual search for its other half.
A core premise of Annihilation is that trauma is embedded in our genetic memory (which has some scientific basis), and that the original trauma of mitosis has been part of life since the beginning, mutating and perpetuating itself, and we are all programmed to keep reliving and inflicting trauma as a result.
When Lena’s husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) returns from a mysterious military mission, his detachment and impaired memory could be because he’s an alien doppelgänger, but these are also symptoms of PTSD. As outlined quite explicitly in the dialogue, each of the characters who ventures into The Shimmer, the alien-infected zone of mystery, is driven there by their own baggage. “We’re all damaged goods.” Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez) is a sober former-addict. Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson) wears long sleeves to hide the scars of her self-harm. The aloof Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) has cancer, and is completely alone, without friends or family. Cass Sheppard (the excellent Tuva Novotny) lost a daughter to leukemia. “In a way, it’s two bereavements,” she says simply. “The loss of my beautiful daughter. And the loss of the person I used to be.”
We don’t actually know the root of Lena’s trauma, since she lies to her companions about her husband being dead. It’s possibly related to her military service- when she faces the sharkodile, she slips into an almost trance-like state as she fires her machine gun, unflinching, into its jaws. The sound grows muffled and droning overtakes the soundtrack, like the ringing of ears. In flashbacks, we learn she’s been having an affair with a colleague, born of a self-loathing that drives her to blow up her otherwise-happy marriage to sweet, affectionate Kane. We do find out she met Kane in the military; it’s possible that he’s somehow, subconsciously linked to her trauma, causing her to lash out in this way.
Garland has created a beautiful, psychedelic world inside The Shimmer, punctuated by terrifying beasts and jump-scares. The horror moments feel like an intentional use of common tropes- a monster lurking in the water, a woman driven mad holding her fellow explorers hostage in a cabin in the woods. Horror as a genre has always been about exploring trauma. Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is about rape, and the terror of being disbelieved. An extremely contemporary example, Get Out (2017) explores the trauma of racial animus.
There’s only one song on the soundtrack, amidst a score that swings between plaintive acoustic guitar and pounding, unearthly synths: “Helplessly Hoping” by Crosby, Stills, & Nash.
The lyrics reiterate the themes of lost love and the trauma of separation.
They are one person
They are two alone
They are three together
They are for each other
The song plays during a quiet flashback to Lena and Kane sitting on the couch, reading together. Lena is reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a book about both biological mutation and the legacy of trauma in African-American history. Henrietta Lacks was a southern Black woman, daughter of sharecroppers, who had an ovarian tumor biopsied at Johns Hopkins in 1951. (Lena is a professor at Johns Hopkins.) Unbeknownst to Lacks, the tumor contained cells that could reproduce indefinitely. Scientists harvested and grew these cells in labs globally; immortal cells are a tremendous boon to scientific research. However, Lacks’ continued medical treatment was perfunctory, and she was buried in an unmarked grave after the cancer metastasized throughout her abdomen. She never consented to give up this tissue, and neither she nor her family knew how it was being used until after her death. It’s a heartbreaking story that raises issues of medical consent, bodily autonomy, and whether an individual’s rights can outweigh scientific benefit to millions. The book is also about the shameful way Black Americans have been treated by the medical establishment for centuries- experimented upon, discarded, and ignored. There’s a lasting, justified distrust for medical authority in many Black communities, and it manifests today as lower life expectancy and higher rates of many kinds of illness and chronic conditions. The long history of trauma has reverberated through generations.
Self-destruction is an extremely common impulse response to trauma. A lot has been written about this, but my mind kept going back to Roxane Gay, whose extremely stark, personal writing on her own traumatic experiences has always stuck with me. (Content warning for rape, violence, eating disorders at the link). A central conversation between Lena and Dr. Ventress illuminates this theme. The fate of each character is closely linked to their trauma and coping mechanisms. Thorensen’s substance abuse was a way of escaping reality; her inability to accept the horrors she’s witnessing or to trust her companions is her downfall. Radek’s scars become vines growing out of her flesh, finally allowing her to “feel alive”. Ventress’ cancer is mirrored in her transformation? merging? into an explosive, mutating fractal. Sheppard was consumed by a creature that destroyed her body and her friendly, warm personality, leaving only her screams of terror howling from the creatures mouth. It makes flesh the tragedy she felt earlier, that she’d lost her former self when her daughter died, and all that remained was embodied grief.
Lena’s fate is a little more ambiguous. After watching video of Kane’s self-immolation and seeing Ventress fractalize, she encounters an alien creature who mirrors her movements- her instinctive, violent attacks against the alien are turned against her. An attempt to escape through the lighthouse door leads to her being crushed against the door by the alien, in a brutal, anaerobic embrace. Eventually, she seems to plan a mutual self-destruction, but escapes at the last minute, watching the cancerous mutation that had overtaken the lighthouse go up in flames.
As she tells her interrogator, Lena survived because she had something to come back for: Kane. He’s still in isolation, but is conscious, and though both he and Lena have been changed (or replaced?) in some unnameable way, they recognize each other. In spite of the Thriller-eyes last shots, I read this as a cautiously optimistic ending. Both bear physical markers of what they’ve been through, but, perhaps hearkening back to the Platonic story, their souls recognize each other.
