Annihilation won't give you answers, but surrender to its beautiful fever dream and you won’t regret it

Whether or not a copy of the original novel Annihilation sits on your bookshelf, you'll come out of the movie adaptation with questions. Questions about the strange, alien ecosystem that is Area X, about the entity that created it, and on the films ambiguous ending. Director Alex Garland knows his way around a science fiction plot, but Annihilation is his most ambitious yet precisely because of what it leaves out.

The synopsis is deceptively simple at first. After a biologist's husband returns home from a secret mission, she (played by a brilliantly tough but brittle Natalie Portman) ends up volunteering to follow in his footsteps to investigate the mysterious "Area X" with a band of kickass women. Area X is affected by a strange miasma called the Shimmer, an unexplained force that affects and adapts the ecosystem within it. But what's causing it? What exactly did it do to the expeditions that had tried to explore it before? What does it want? 

From there the story bends and warps, the team stops trusting time or each other, and the world inside Area X is a heady combination of beautiful - flowers blooming and growing in strange shapes - and violent, like a flesh hungry alligator or a nightmarish bear thing. Garland makes you chase after the women wanting explanations, but when they do come they're just crumbs that leave you hungry for more. 

Sure, it can be hard getting crumbs when you're used to being served the whole cake, with a step by step guide to well-worn plot iced on top in large icing letters, but it's humbling to go into a strange world and discover it along with the characters, to form your own theories, watch them get smashed apart by a new surprise, and have to start over. While it tells a very different story, Annihilation left me with the same feelings as Under the Skin, another science fiction story with striking visuals. Both took beloved novels and used them as inspiration, rather than paint by numbers, to build their own haunting worlds. 

For me, the uncertainty didn't do anything to lessen the emotional impact. One scene with the aforementioned bear will stalk the dark corners of mind every time I turn out the lights. Another, with Tessa Thompson (now firmly on my list of people who make any movie they star in a must-see) and her character Josie Radek, managed to be subtle and stealthily heartbreaking all at once. You'll never look at the Chelsea Flower Show the same way again.

The real deal breaker for most people will be the ending, the final scene comes at you in a wave of crazy that leaves you disorientated and a little unsure of how to interpret it. Here's the secret, it doesn't matter. The pay off isn't a final answer you can sum up in the length of a tweet, it's the ride that you've been on, the story you build for the characters after the credits have rolled.  

Rachel Weber
Contributor

Rachel Weber is the former US Managing Editor of GamesRadar+ and lives in Brooklyn, New York. She joined GamesRadar+ in 2017, revitalizing the news coverage and building new processes and strategies for the US team.

Latest in Action Movies
Fantastic Four: 1234 #2 cover excerpt
Sue Storm and Namor are officially both in Avengers: Doomsday, and fans are wondering if Reed Richards has something to worry about
Chris Evans as Steve Rogers with the rest of the gang during the superhero movie, The Avengers.
The OG Fox X-Men are back, with Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and more joining the cast of Avengers: Doomsday alongside a whole new Avengers team to take on Robert Downey Jr's Doctor Doom
Robert Downey Jr. sitting in a chair at the end of a long line of chairs
Everything announced during Marvel's Avengers: Doomsday cast reveal live stream
The cast of Suicide Squad (2016)
David Ayer admits James Gunn has good reason not to release his cut of Suicide Squad, but he remains hopeful it'll happen
The Fantastic Four: First Steps cast assemble
Fantastic Four star says the Marvel movie "will go down in history" for rejuvenating the MCU, "in the same way the Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther hit"
Ben Affleck in Air
Ben Affleck isn't in The Odyssey, but he plans to visit the set anyway to watch Christopher Nolan work: "He's one of the greatest filmmaking architects to ever live"
Latest in Features
Naoe kills a target with a black and white filter over the camera highlighting the red of blood spray in Assassin's Creed Shadows, with an On The Radar orange frame
Assassin's Creed Shadows "has a little bit of Tarantino flavor", but its real secret ingredient is intrigue: "It's almost like you're watching an episode of Shogun"
Helldivers 2 Borderline Justice Warbond helldiver using hoverpack to shoot down with hunting rifle
Talking points from the Game Developers Conference 2025 and how they could impact the future of gaming
Flexispot E7 Plus with plant, monitor, soundbar, and controller on top next to white wall lighting.
Gaming desks vs regular desks: which surface should you buy?
Google Pixel 9a smartphones on a beige background
One Google Pixel 9a feature could make it a better gaming phone than most budget mainstream models
Yasuke and Naoe ready to fight on the Assassin's Creed Shadows On The Radar thumbnail
On The Radar: Assassin's Creed Shadows coverage hub
Captain Planet #1
Captain Planet is back after 33 years with a "sexy" makeover and a message that's as important as ever: "Reality has gotten a lot less subtle"