A mid-week cinema screening at 9 o'clock on a chilly winter's evening is not normally what I would opt for, preferring instead to shut the world out straight after work and be snuggled up at home with a cuppa and whatever the TV has to offer. However, having heard positive noise about the latest in a string of Amy Adams movies, and an interview with the talented actress, I decided to forgo the early night and take a chance on a film I didn't really know much about. My partner had mentioned that he would like to see it when he saw the trailer a couple of weeks ago, so we wrapped up and made the harrowing journey into Witney, 5 minutes from home.

As the showing started my partner leaned over and whispered 'Is this the one about aliens?!' which I suppose is one way to describe it, so I nodded. However, although from the outset it may appear to be about aliens, there is a lot more depth to the story.

Adams plays linguistics professor Dr Louise Banks, quietly going about her day when the news breaks that 12 alien spacecraft have appeared at seemingly random points around the world. We see everything through her eyes, and her performance is one of the best I have seen in the last few years – she is expressive yet subtle in her reaction to everything going on around her. And there is a lot going on in her hitherto (apparently) rather lonely life. A visit from Colonel Weber (the always brilliant Forest Whitaker) informs us that she has previous in working with the government in linguistics matters, and still has Top Secret clearance. They need her to decipher the alien language, and quickly.

It's difficult to review Arrival while trying not to give too much away. I went into the film knowing little about it, and I think that is the best way; you discover the events along with Dr Banks and new acquaintance Ian Donnelly (a flirty Jeremy Renner), recruited to unravel the scientific and mathematical side of things, while Banks figures out how to communicate. It is cinematically beautiful, with slow panning shots and stunning vistas (whether it's Banks' isolated home or the Montana Ground Zero) and while it may not be action-packed it still has moments that had my heart-racing.

What I loved most about it was its heart. While the world is panicking and shutting down communications between countries, unwilling to share what they have learned from the craft in their territory, Banks and Donnelly work together with the heptapods and the two species slowly begin to understand each other, while Banks also learns a lot more about herself.

Jaws isn't about a shark: Arrival isn't about aliens. In each case, the unknown threat is necessary if you want to explain the plot, but the story is tooled to linger with you longer than the special effects, cutting-edge or unconvincingly rubbery as they may be.

Denis Villeneuve's expectation-flipping early features and his masterfully uneasy plunge into the roiling heart of drugs cartels in the more mainstream Sicario (Netflix, icymi) make him a director to watch. And news that his new work may be in the vein of Close Encounters or Interstellar is intriguing even if all that space malarkey leaves you feeling like a die-hard earthling. You should really see this: moved and election-ravaged, I wanted to applaud at the end, but cynically imagined it'd be a solo clap amongst the teenager-dominated audience. However, seeing that they had post-credits discussions put my mind at rest.

A linguist is the hero: having translated for the US government in conflict zones in recent years, Amy Adams' character Dr. Louise Banks still has clearance on which they intend to capitalise. That the first blinding, surprising night-time visitation Banks witnesses is actually one from the Army choppers, is one of many pleasing sidesteps of first-contact movie expectation. She is to head a team including Jeremy Renner's theoretical physicist, whom we suspect is a good egg, and is surrounded by military types prone to panic and blowing alien things out of the sky – alien things of which there are twelve, hanging gracefully and ominously in the air above sites across the globe. How will earth respond, as the crafts' occupants welcome humans inside to defy gravity and wait for the visitors to arrive?

I'm going to mention it in comparison with a film still doing the rounds - Doctor Strange may be worlds apart from Arrival's bold poetic approach, but they're both about opening the mind and have been lauded for their respective concepts. Differences: Strange has been spoken of in terms of its enthralling design (itself in thrall to Inception) and Arrival, though less flashy, would pick up the gong at my awards ceremony. Both have to illustrate the realms of the unimaginable, and Strange did so with impressive Escher-like enfolding of reality and every colour in the spectrum. In depicting extraterrestrials, their technology and especially their written language, Arrival instead shows restraint and emerges with a consistent design identity, which not only convinces but encodes the morals and concepts behind its execution. The heptapods' written language is beautiful, monochrome and harmonises with the 2001-esque silence and atmosphere of their spacecraft. Well done. Early on I missed the painterly framing of Roger Deakins which made Sicario a treat, but for us font fans, seeing Futura make a cameo in the subtitles is a niche bonus.

And another link is the Whovian connection – both films use devices which have formed plot-hinges in the Stephen Moffat years of Doctor Who, but which would be massive spoilers were I to discuss them here. In both cases, the plot-borrowing is integral to the protagonist's success. Arrival benefits from a runtime that allows its concepts to be fully fleshed out and appear within an elegant structure: in Strange's case, the familiar device was better-worked out in Who, and though its non-violent nature is pleasingly novel in a Marvel movie, evokes a lesser emotional response. And there is ample invitation to connect with Adams' lead, in another really unshowy performance with hidden depths. The genius is making you forget that there's any acting going on. Renner is fine; and Forest Whitaker's army General the perfect mixture of irascible and flexible.

I do feel I should issue a warning, too: if it's explosions and carnage you're looking for, maybe bring some coffee to keep yourself alert. If it's a well-told story that looks less dystopian than today's news but still studies broken human nature, gets complex but never descends into an exposition-fest, and is wrapped in striking, sympathetic visuals and a great score from Max Richter and others – then I applaud your prescience, and exhort you to find a cinema as soon as possible.