LogFAQs > #983060350

iirc, basically, it used the Sapir-Worf hypothesis to the extreme.

and that's how language informs our reality.

an example that's used is how Inuit people have more words for snow in their language to express their concept of it, they can perceive it on a deeper level than others.

in Arrival, since the heptapods had a non-linear language, they also experienced reality non-linearly, and they were able to pass that on to the lead with her study of them.

as for the stuff in the beginning, I think we saw the events of her life in a linear way, for the most part, but the stuff with her daughter was a twist to drive the message of the movie home, and that her non-linear perception of reality only after she learned it from the heptapods so anything before that in the timeline was unaffected.

anyway, I've only seen it once back when it first came out in 2016(?), but it's still probably my favorite sci-fi movie.