Although at times the film was incredibly slow, it was actually quite interesting. My interpretation of the film was that it explored what makes us human. The film started with Scarlett Johansson’s character coming to earth and learning how to speak (or at least that’s what I thought was happening). She then had many conversations with different people in which the audience could tell she wasn’t a good communicator because she wasn’t human. During the earlier conversations, she would ask too many questions or even repeat what she had already asked them. Then she started killing people and I thought that ironically the more people she killed, the more human she became. The scene where the two men are trapped in water shows one man deflating as though everything “under the skin” had gone. To me I interpreted that as her becoming more human as though she was “taking” what was inside of them, but I could be very wrong. I also thought she became more human the more she killed because the more people she killed, the better at conversations she became. She never was great at it, but she was slightly better. I think she kept becoming more and more human until the point of empathy, which is why she didn’t kill the man with the disfigured face because she was now human. The moment she looked in the mirror showed her turning point and recognition of becoming more human. I think the film’s message was that empathy makes us human. Her not killing this man contrasted to her watching people drown at the beginning, showing how she now has empathy and questions what is morally correct making her human. I think the film included scenes of her attempting and failing “human” things like having sex and eating cake to show that that’s not what makes us human but caring for others is.

I liked the links between Scarlett’s character and the woman at the beginning, it showed how Scarlett had become human. When Scarlett was lying on the bed while her clothes were being taken off, it reminded me a lot of the scene where she took the clothes off the kidnapped woman. Plus, when she is out of her human skin at the end and holding her face which is still blinking, it reminded me of the close up of the woman’s face when she was crying. I also thought the TV programme was a reference to the beginning with the voice over of Scarlett’s character doing phonics and learning how to speak, that felt important in that moment because she was on her journey of becoming someone new again.

Although the plot could be very confusing with the lack of dialogue and narration, I thought the entire film was from the aliens point of view and that things like the overwhelming flashing lights in the club and the painful motif sound throughout was there to explain what was happening and also in some instances how she felt in place of narration. Although narration would have been incredibly helpful and maybe even appreciated, I think it would taken away from what the film is as it consistently defies logic but in beautiful ways such as, when she sleeps her body can be seen in the trees, emphasising that in that moment she was in peace which was a nice break from all the stress and killing. The entire film being mainly ambiguous was one of its main features and adding narration would have taken that away.