A feminist film starring Natalie Portman
According to the actor Oscar Isaac, it is very usual to see a group of men going to the rescue of a female character in any American movie. This time the roles are reversed and the man plays the damsel in distress. It has been very fun. In an atmosphere that follows sex scandals and the wage gap between men and women in Hollywood, the film was not spared attacks, with all its female cast. "Aniquilación" was criticized because the characters of Portman and Leigh were written in the books for an Asian woman and a woman of indigenous descent. This despite the fact that the cast includes Sonoya Mizuno, a British born in Japan, and Benedict Wong, whose parents were born in Hong Kong.
"Annihilation" has been praised for its impressive and ethereal aesthetics, but it is a relatively banal aspect that makes this unusual science fiction movie: its cast of women marching towards danger. Although cast so many in romantic comedies, there is an action movie assembled around fully trained, brave and intelligent women is a bit unprecedented. In "Aniquilación" it was not necessary for men to run for the tough mission.
A group of women had already been recruited to go to "Area X," a sinister area in a coastal area of the United States where there is an ultrasecret site of extraterrestrial accidents. Natalie Portman plays a biologist and former soldier who joins the expedition seeking explanations for the injuries suffered by her husband, also a military man, while investigating the phenomenon.
According to Portman, an Oscar winner, on the red carpet of the film's premiere in Los Angeles, she has never seen anything like it, had never had the opportunity to work with incredible roles for five women. From British writer and director Alex Garland, "Annihilation" is based on the acclaimed book trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer.
The tape opens in the United States on February 23, but Paramount sold the international distribution, except for Canada and China, to Netflix, in a move seen as an admission that the studio does not think it will sell well abroad. According to the weekly The Hollywood Reporter, the decision was taken after a study last summer that indicated that the film would be too intellectual for the general public. Garland's camera follows these women, who discover a beautiful but deadly world of landscapes and creatures that threaten their sanity. The Florida swamps, in which the film is set, were recreated in the Windsor Great Park, which was once a private hunting area of the royal family.
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson and Tuva Novotny complete the cast with Portman, who highlighted the leisure time he shared with his teammates during filming. Portman's husband is played by Guatemalan Oscar Isaac, who worked with Garland on his acclaimed science fiction film "Ex Machina." The actor has seen his career grow thanks to his starring role in the new trilogy of "Star Wars", but in this film, he has a secondary role: unconscious in a hospital bed for much of the film.