How do you ruin a set-up this good?  Start by showing your lead character cheating ok her husband while they’re trying to get pregnant, be unpleasant even to her lover. Give your villain the most vague, half-assed motivation that has fuck-all to do with your lead character 

Cast a woman who weighs maybe 100 pounds, have her be shot twice, and still expect an audience to believe that she’ll be able to fight, let alone defeat, an uninjured, physically fit man (probably a veteran).  And then pull the most simultaneously expected and unbelievable “back from the dead” hero return I’ve ever seen.

What the fuck movie?  This is like an overgrown film exercise that forgot to have any logical story or character actions. Figuring out how to make a movie without dialogue doesn’t make it a good movie.

Giant monsters fighting each other with just enough of a human plot to hold it together. What else do you need?

Oh, some ridiculously over-qualified cinematography?  Sure, I’ll take that too.

To explain the central theme of Arrival would be to undermine the experience and what makes it so powerful.  All I can say is that on second viewing it lost none of its power to bring me to tears.  Not because it was sad, thought there is certainly sadness involved, but because I find the decision made by Louise so beautiful that I can’t find words to describe it.