It's hard to know how to describe Annihilation, Alex Garland's sophomore directorial effort following Ex Machina, in which he took the bare bones of the novel upon which the film is based, discarded most of the plot, and replaced it with this strange, nightmarish fever dream of a movie. Annihilation follows Natalie Portman's biologist, Lena, who leads a team of scientists (including Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez, and Jennifer Jason Leigh) into an unexplained, rainbow-hued anomaly known as "the Shimmer" following the disappearance of an earlier team that included her husband (Oscar Isaac). Inside the Shimmer, Lena's team encounters all sorts of bizarre, beautiful, and increasingly unsettling phenomena, including both plants and animals behaving in unearthly ways.
Complicating matters is their realization that the Shimmer is affecting their memories. In fact, it may even be chipping away at their sanity as they search for answers about the previous team and the Shimmer itself. Annihilation isn't overly concerned with delivering those answers, and it's much more interested in serving up question after question, all revolving around its central themes of change and destruction. Where it all leads is somewhat in the eye of the beholder, with a dizzying, disconcerting climax that can be interpreted in any number of different ways. Without a doubt, Annihilation's ending is sure to leave your mind buzzing long after the movie ends.
