Alex Garland's Annihilation might be the prettiest end-of-the-world movie you'll ever see.
Based on the novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer, the movie tells the story of a
group of scientists venturing into a strange quarantined zone called the Shimmer.
Inside, they encounter a surreal world that seems to be remixing itself, and everything
in it.
The film juggles some heavy themes and has a lot going on in its narrative, so by the
time it ends, it's a little difficult to unpack.
Let's break down the ending of Annihilation.
From a galaxy far away
The film's primary question is: "What is the Shimmer?"
The film's opening shots show some sort of interstellar object careening through Earth's
atmosphere and crashing into a lighthouse, which becomes the prime destination for the
research and military expeditions into Area X, which is what the land surrounding the
Shimmer comes to be known as.
The Shimmer, as it turns out, is some sort of alien force.
It's either a thinking, living, breathing thing, or a kind of celestial cancer, replicating
itself unconsciously.
Either way, its whole essence is ultimately tied to an alien entity that we see take on
humanoid form in the film's closing moments.
Through the prism
Annihilation's second question is what does the Shimmer do?
Determining this is the primary goal of Lena's expedition.
Until her husband Kane came back, nobody who entered the Shimmer ever returned, and he
seems to be sick, no longer fully in control of himself, and clearly in pain.
With Kane out of commission, the Area X crew still can't say for sure what happens in the
Shimmer, even after throwing team after team into its clutches… until Lena and her crew
journey in.
Despite the way our protagonists are picked off one-by-one, the Shimmer isn't an explicitly
destructive force.
The land inside isn't a ravaged wasteland, but a lush, exotic forest filled with surreal
flora and animals that only resemble those native to Earth.
The scientists discover that everything exposed to the Shimmer is in a constant, accelerated
state of mutation, and that mutation isn't confined to singular DNA sets.
Instead, the DNA is collectively jumbled up.
Animals become mixed with the plants; organic and inorganic materials combine, connecting
all of nature in a very literal, very impossible way.
"Do you think it's a cross-breed?"
"You can't cross-breed between different species."
The end times
It's established early on in the film that the Shimmer is spreading.
As the scientists journey deeper into its confines, we see that Area X's original headquarters
has been completely overtaken by the Shimmer.
Its threat is made abundantly clear by Jennifer Jason Leigh's Doctor Ventress.
If it goes unchecked, the Shimmer will consume the world.
Based on what we see, it'd be a gorgeous apocalypse - but it's still an apocalypse.
While beautiful, the Shimmer is littered with corpses and mutations, and filled with an
overwhelming sense of dread.
Humans in the Shimmer encounter violent ends, like Anya's death in the jaws of a mutant
bear, or they give themselves over to it.
In humans, this DNA remixing leads to madness, making them disoriented, agitated, and spaced
out.
The film never makes a statement on whether the Shimmer's effects are a good or bad thing.
It simply presents them as an inevitability.
Face-to-face
Toward the film's climax, Lena encounters Doctor Ventress, who has finally made it to
the Lighthouse.
However, Ventress has become a part of the alien force that created the Shimmer, and
she soon transcends her human form and becomes a sort of fractal prism herself.
After this prism absorbs a drop of Lena's blood, it takes on a humanoid form.
In this moment, Lena effectively meets the Shimmer.
While it initially seems malicious, the Shimmer never actually sets out to harm Lena.
Instead, it just mirrors her movements.
It's an important moment that embodies the goals of the Shimmer, it seeks understanding
and integration.
It assimilates to its environment; the mass mutations and prism effect are the result.
Smashing the mirror
As her confrontation with the Shimmer creature comes to a head, the creature, now in a humanoid
form and morphing into Lena, is given a grenade by the real Lena: She places it in the Shimmer's
hands, pulls the pin, and runs.
As the grenade explodes, the Shimmer creature catches fire; the lighthouse burns, destroying
the entirety of the Shimmer with it.
It cements the idea that the Shimmer is one large collective being, and also allows Lena
the opportunity to escape and make her way back to Area X.
Self-destruct sequence
Annihilation is a movie about destruction, and the idea that deep in our genetic coding
there's a primal urge to destroy ourselves and the world around us.
The Shimmer serves as an embodiment of that inevitable urge.
It destroys what we have and turns it into something new, for better or worse.
That penchant for self-destruction is explored intensely through our protagonists.
Lena is a woman who ruins her marriage with an affair, indirectly influencing her husband
to go on what is potentially a one-way mission.
Alma is a recovering addict.
Josie bears the scars of self-harm.
Ventress is dying of a cancer mutating her insides, which informs her fascination with
the Shimmer.
These characters all have a subconscious wish to end their lives, so their journeys ever
deeper into the Shimmer have an air of inevitability.
Even though Lena survives, she only does so by destroying a doppelgänger of herself,
metaphorically wiping away her old identity and emerging as something new.
Quarantine Q&A
Following her return from the Shimmer, Lena is forced to take part in an extensive debriefing
about her journey while under a strict quarantine.
Is it the real Lena or a double?
After her time inside the Shimmer, the truth is somewhere in between.
After her questioning, Lena is finally reunited with Kane, who's no longer dying from the
Shimmer's effects, and even seems somewhat lucid.
What Lena knows, and others don't, is that it cannot possibly be him.
New me, new you
The most ambiguous moment of the film takes place in its closing moments: Lena has known
since encountering her husband's remains at the Lighthouse that whatever's back in the
Area X facility isn't him, but rather something new.
Her being reunited with this Kane isn't quite the moment those around her believe it is.
She knows the truth, and needs to tie up one last loose end.
Reunited with Kane's doppelgänger, Lena asks him if he's really her husband, and his answer
is not encouraging.
"I don't think so.
Are you Lena?"
Kane is something new, as well as the last remaining fragment of the Shimmer, whether
he's fully aware of it or not.
In the film's haunting finale the two embrace as both of their irises fluctuate and change
color, signaling the continuing mutation and evolution caused by the Shimmer.
It now resides in Lena and Kane, who will live on to change the world even further.
It might not happen soon, but the primal coding that sends us toward self-destruction remains
as an inevitability that nobody, and nothing, will ever fully escape.
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