Its effects are most magnified near the centre, and they fade away as one travels towards the periphery. With its centre at the lighthouse, it is radiating energy all around it. In simpler terms, you could take it for a Wi-fi signal, of sorts. It is like an electromagnetic field with its effects limited to the area that comes inside its boundaries. Ventress tells Lena that the Shimmer appeared three years back, around the lighthouse, and since then, it has been expanding its territory. Instead of turning it into a franchise (that it could’ve easily been), he decided to condense the material, gave it his perspective, his touch and created a standalone movie that is worth his name. The fact that Alex Garland chose to write the script without bothering to be completely faithful to the original source material says a lot about his intentions towards the story. So, before you start debating on ‘the book is better than the movie’ issue, you should know that they are both very different from each other. While the film is loosely based on the book of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer, it is not quite the same. She joins the team of women who are tasked with entering the area and reaching its centre to find out all that they can about it. That is where Lena comes to know that Kane’s last mission was to go inside The Shimmer. Suddenly, he becomes really sick, and while he is being escorted to the hospital, the ambulance is intercepted by some soldiers and Lena and Kane are taken away. He doesn’t remember much and is acting a bit weird. A year later, he literally appears at her doorstep, out of nowhere. Her soldier husband, Kane (Oscar Issac), went on a mission and didn’t come back. It starts with a meteor hitting a lighthouse and creating a field around itself, its boundary marked with The Shimmer- an incorporeal, shimmering rainbow-ish layer. And you’ll know that there is more to it than all that appears. But, if you are more open-minded than that, then you’ll be captivated by the beautiful visuals and a mesmerising background score that perfects the tone of the film. If you are going in to watch a sci-fi film with all the freaky aliens and the fantastic fight for humanity, then you will be disappointed. And while this can be a treat to some, it can also leave the audiences polarised about it. It is obviously simple at times and brilliantly mind-boggling at others (and that ending!). It goes from depicting highly gross scenes to equally magnificent views. The thing with ‘Annihilation’ is that it is too many things, all at once.

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