There’s a scene in Alex Garland’s “Annihilation,” in which the protagonist, played by Natalie Portman as Lena, comes face to face with her doppelganger. Her counterpart mimics every move she makes, displaying a choreography that left me captivated. I did not have this feeling with the novel, written by Jeff VanderMeer. This was perhaps due to his insistence that the characters don’t matter. He doesn’t even give names to the main characters. In the novel, we simply know Lena as the Biologist.
The premise of the story involves a team of female scientists who explore a restricted zone known as Area X (Shimmer in the movie). Teams that enter never return. One exception is Lena’s husband, or so we think. He is shown through flashbacks, but he does not reciprocate the love that the Biologist/Lena shows to him. When he eventually passes away from cancer that he received from his mission, this motivates Lena to go herself to find answers.
The novel reminded me of the tv show “Seinfeld” which had a premise about literally nothing. In the book, I just kept wondering why nothing was happening. The boring prose left me annoyed.
The characters also did not know one another, yet are sent on a dangerous mission where previous groups did not come back from? I’m not sure what VanderMeer was trying to say with this. It’s unrealistic for a group to go on a dangerous mission right after meeting each other.
The movie does a better job of showing, albeit very little, camaraderie before they go off in their exploration. In dangerous missions like these, trust is essential for survival. VanderMeer didn’t give it a second thought. In the movie, the rest of the team introduce themselves to Lena and offer a seat at their table. In the book, they are already on the mission.
It was difficult to imagine the characters in the book. Not only did they not have names, but VanderMeer doesn’t even describe how they look. “Annihilation” is part of a trilogy. VanderMeer reveals that the protagonist is of Asian descent in the second book. Garland received some backlash for not casting an Asian actress. However, this was not his fault, as he did not read the second book. He didn’t choose to change the race of the character. The fault lies squarely with VanderMeer. I feel it is the duty of the author to provide some type of description of the most important character, since we are following her journey. If I went to read the second novel to discover that the character is of a different race, I would have felt deceived. Granted, I already saw previews of the movie, so I had Natalie Portman in mind. However, I’m sure I still would have pictured a white character even if I didn’t.
The casting director also deserves kudos, with appearances including Oscar Isaac, Tessa Thompson, and Benedict Wong.
Alex Garland does a great job making “Annihilation” his own. If he stayed true to the book, it would take me multiple watches, as I would have undoubtedly fallen asleep.