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    Natalie Portman, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson and the sci-fi sisterhood behind 'Annihilation'

    by Jen Yamato, Los Angeles Times Feb 20, 2018 7 minutes

    Onscreen in the sci-fi odyssey "Annihilation," an expedition ventures deep into a foreboding terrain known only as Area X, carrying guns and harboring mounting suspicions about one another.

    These soldiers - a psychologist (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a biologist (Natalie Portman), a paramedic (Gina Rodriguez), a physicist (Tessa Thompson) and an anthropologist (Tuva Novotny) - enter what is about to become a living, breathing nightmare, an environmental disaster zone without scientific explanation, as filtered through the mind of "Ex Machina" director Alex Garland, adapting the first book in Jeff VanderMeer's "Southern Reach" trilogy.

    That they're all complex and dimensional female characters is at once trailblazing and, refreshingly, perfectly normalized.

    "Each of the women have their own destructive behavior," said Portman, who brings steely intensity to the role of Lena, the biologist with her own reasons for volunteering for the dangerous mission, in Friday's release. "I find that so beautiful. That's the greatest science fiction, when the psychological becomes externalized.

    "And to have five women at the center of this expedition - we're so used to seeing five men going and doing something together, it's not even questioned why it's always all

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