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Annihilation released in 2018 with only a brief run in theaters. Despite earning positive reviews, the film did poorly at the box office and has continued to be overlooked by audiences ever since. Starring Natalie Portman, the sci-fi movie blended elements of action films, thrillers, and horror, along with hauntingly beautiful and bizarre visuals to produce a unique experience that deserves more attention than it received. Fans who were fortunate enough to check it out were likely struck by its brilliant writing and performances, as well as its message about illness and grief.

Sickness, death, and coping with loss are all explored in Annihilation through an approach that is simultaneously sad, terrifying, and comforting. While many viewers and critics picked up on these elements, however, few noticed just how deep these themes were embedded in the story. A close examination of the characters reveals that they all, in fact, represent different stages of grief according to the well-known Kübler-Ross model. Under this model, people facing death move through five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. In Annihilation, each member of the team that enters the Shimmer comes to embody a different one of these stages.

The Shimmer Spreads Like Cancer, Eliciting the Five Stages of Grief

While there isn’t a true villain or antagonist in Annihilation, the Shimmer is practically a character itself, overshadowing everything else in the film and, at times, appearing to have a will of its own. Growing out of a meteorite that struck the Earth three years earlier, it confounds researchers as it continues to expand and envelop more territory. In its sudden appearance and uncontrollable growth, this Shimmer seems to represent disease, and cancer in particular.

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Consuming everything in its path as it mindlessly grows and mutates, the Shimmer immediately sparks fear among those studying it. Little understood, it seems to absorb everything it touches and, from the beginning of the movie, appears to pose a threat to all life on earth. Like Cancer, it appears to feed on life itself, changing it in ways that result in death for its victims. Each character that enters the Shimmer, seeking a way to stop it, is soon forced to confront their own mortality and comes to represent a different stage in the classic (though controversial) model for explaining grief.

Cassie Dies First Only to Return Later

Cassie Represents Denial

Fittingly, the first character to perish also represents the first stage of grief, denial. A geomorphologist studying the landscape of the environment within the Shimmer, Cassie is attacked and killed early by a terrifying, mutated bear, being dragged off into the forest. Her demise is horrifying in itself, but it’s what comes after that truly shocks her companions and viewers, and speaks to her place in the stages of grief.

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While Cassie dies before she has a chance to really contemplate the danger she’s in or express any elements of grief, the later return of the mutant-bear, and her voice coming from its mouth, is almost a symbolic form of denial. Her voice echoing from the creature that killed her seems to indicate that the Shimmer “refracted” some part of her into it, and she has not completely died. Her voice, seeming to scream in fear and pain, seems to deny her fate, desperately rejecting the fact that she has died at all. While her body has certainly perished, some piece of her refuses to accept that and clings to existence within the bear, making her a disembodied embodiment of denial.

Anya Lashes out at her comrades

Anya Represents Anger

The easiest connection to make in Annihilation’s analogy of grief is Anya’s reflection of anger. Faced with the shocking truth of the Shimmer and the possibility that she will die, or else change to the point where she is no longer herself, Anya transforms her fear into rage and lashes out at those around her. Showing how those suffering or in pain can sometimes become their own worst enemies and harm the very people who are trying to help them, Anya nearly kills the rest of her team before dying herself.

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Anya is another example of a character dying in the same order as the stage of grief they represent. As anger, according to the model, comes after denial, Anya is killed after Cassie, by a creature that has partially absorbed Cassie. After this, however, the stages of grief appear to be shaken up by Annihilation, with characters reflecting the different stages perishing out of order or surviving until the end of the story.

Lena Is Constantly Making Deals

Lena Represents Bargaining

Intriguingly, the film’s protagonist does not represent the final stage of grief. Instead, Lena seems to embody bargaining throughout Annihilation. The cellular biologist and Army veteran finds herself negotiating with others throughout the film. When first seized by the government and questioned about her husband’s return from the Shimmer, she tries to bargain for information and ultimately makes a deal that involves her going into the Shimmer herself. While in the Shimmer, she urges other characters to continue on with their journey multiple times, seeming to conclude deals with them.

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Further, in a more accurate depiction of the sort of bargaining that occurs in the stages of grief theory, Lena appears to bargain with herself during her adventure. Committed to completing her mission and reaching the lighthouse, she seems convinced that doing so will somehow save Kane. She appears to be motivated by this hope and has subconsciously reached a deal with fate that, if she does her job, she won’t have to face the loss of her husband.

Ventress Succumbs to Despair

Ventress Represents Depression

Ventress, the leader of the team and the character who is literally suffering with Cancer in Annihilation, plainly represents depression by the end of her story. During their journey, Ventress abandons her group and moves on alone, isolating herself from others. Speaking to the loneliness of depression and the tendency to self-destructively withdraw from friends and family, she succumbs to sadness, both about the Shimmer and her illness, and finds herself alone.

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When Lena eventually finds Ventress, the former leader has plainly lost all hope. Seeming to exude emotional agony, Ventress talks about the Shimmer in apocalyptic terms, claiming that it will continue to expand and eventually destroy the world. When she finally meets her end, it is literally in a black pit that reflects her inner turmoil. She dies, not having accepted her fate, but seeming to have simply lost the will to carry on.

Only Josie Finds Peace

Josie Represents Acceptance

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Of the entire team, only Josie the physicist seems to find any beauty in the Shimmer, and only she seems to come to an end that could be described as peaceful. It’s Josie who first comes to understand the Shimmer, deducing that it refracts the DNA of creatures inside, changing them into new beings, and accepting that it will happen to her as well. In her final conversation with Lena, she reflects on the pain and fear that Cassie was in when she died and explains that she doesn’t want to go out the same way.

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Regarding the shimmer, she tells Lena that “Ventress wants to face it, you want to fight it, but I don’t think I want either of those things.” With this dying declaration, Josie explicitly moves beyond both bargaining and depression, indicating that she wants to simply accept the Shimmer and what it will do to her. As she wanders off, Josie seems to transform into a flowering bush, becoming something beautiful even as she passes. Her refusal to fight her fate, her peaceful demeanor, and her noble end all speak to her acceptance of the Shimmer and her own death.

In many ways, Annihilation is a horror movie about fear itself. It explores death and how people respond to it. Through characters that personify the stages of grief, the movie examines both the positive and destructive ways people confront their own morality and the terror that arises from it. These elements, along with its amazing visuals and performances, make Annihilation a great sci-fi horror movie, worthy of more attention than it received.

Annihilation

Release Date

February 23, 2018

Runtime

115 Minutes

Director

Alex Garland

Writers

Alex Garland, Jeff VanderMeer