To bring it all back full circle, let's finally examine whether the film's cornerstone—rewiring the brain via the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis—would really work.
Betty Birner, a professor of linguistics and cognitive science at Northern Illinois University, isn't buying it. "At one point in the movie," Birner recalled to Slate, "the character Ian [Jeremy Renner] says, 'The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says that if you immerse yourself in another language, you can rewire your brain.' And that made me laugh out loud, because Whorf never said anything about rewiring your brain. But since this wasn't the linguist speaking, it's fine that another character is misunderstanding the Sapir-Whorf ... No linguist would ever buy into the notion that the minute you understand something about this second language, get sort of a lightbulb going off, and you say, 'Oh my gosh, I completely see how the speakers of Swahili view plant life now.' It's just silly and its false." Alas, there go our dreams of a real-life Heptapod encounter gifting us with the power to see the future.
Nevertheless, the film is still a good time, even for a hardcore linguist. "It was a ton of fun to see a movie that's basically all about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis," Birner said. "On the other hand, they took the hypothesis way beyond anything that is plausible."
