What's really behind 'Annihilation's Shimmer?

Admittedly, I’d read on the Internet one of the big spoilers for this film, the classic big cinema shock that Oscar Isaac was (wait for it)... an alien clone the whole time! I thought this might ruin the film for me, but to be honest, it took a backseat in Annihilation, only Alex Garland’s second time in the director’s chair. The film made me constantly think, “I probably misread, he could definitely still be alive”, as the constantly warping, mutating environment leaves no room for impossibility. From the minute Natalie Portman steps into ‘The Shimmer’, essentially the blast radius of the galaxy’s weirdest meteor, I felt like I was there myself, which made the film all the more impactful as you aren’t just watching terrible things happening to strangers on screen, you’re completely involved. It’s here that we can see the real meaning of Annihilation, and though I haven’t read Jeff Vandermeer’s original story, this is my crack at it.

Our heroines eventually figure out that everything inside the Shimmer is ripped apart, spliced together, and joined with its surroundings to make completely new forms of life. Even down to our very cells, this cancerous mutation is explained to us, the biological non-geniuses, with repeated shots of cells dividing and multiplying, creating life. This division, the duality of life, is at Annihilation’s heart. The environment of the Shimmer is like nothing we’ve seen before, a cinematic beauty that we can’t take our eyes off. But we can’t enjoy it in peace, as the other side of Garland’s coin is omnipresent. Within this Elysium, and working magnificently to keep us in the edge of our seats, are the horrors that plague the soldiers. As we are straining our eyes to take in every drop of colour and light, we don’t spend a single second at ease with it, with the albino crocs or screaming skull bears (genuinely the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen in a film) never far away.

It’s with these terrors that one of the early lines in Annihilation really comes to life.

“Nobody ever commits suicide, they just self-destruct...”

As we enter the Shimmer, we are following each character in their own self-destruction, their complete transformation, down to their very soul. This destruction can be a violent one, represented so elegantly by a clawed out throat or ripped off jaw, or a slow decomposition, with one of the more peaceful moments of the film hiding the sheer hopelessness of Tessa Thompson’s now 'blooming' scientist, realising she is beyond helping. I see this as cinema doing what it does best, reflecting the human condition onto a screen before our eyes, Annihilation a harrowingly beautiful depiction of depression, and the transformation it causes. Destructive, either through abrupt, violent ends, or complete mutation into a person you don’t recognise, this is what the Shimmer represents. Or at least that’s my take.

So I feel Annihilation should not only be praised for its stunning visuals, nor Portman’s brilliant lead, but for the important themes it addresses, hidden behind such a unique and chaotic new world that you might not notice them at all.