Heartwarming / Arrival

• The friendship that develops between Louise, Ian and the heptapods is also very sweet - considering they start off essentially having no way of properly communicating.
• Ian's expressions while he watches Louise work. Particularly when she enters the heptapod shuttle to reach the main ship. You can see his admiration for her growing into love.
• Although heartbreaking as well due to the girl's young death, the flashes of Louise and Hannah can be very sweet to watch too. It's clear that Louise is a very loving mother and had or will have in the future a close relationship with her daughter. The tearjerking part is that she knows her daughter's fate, and one point after a happy moment, she cries silently to herself as her daughter plays.
• Abbott helping Louise write a sentence. You can even see him realise he's placed his "hand" a little too high on the glass, and move it down so it's easier for her to reach.
  • Then they move symmetrically to draw two halves of the shape. It probably doesn't spell out anything legible to them and looks just like any other circle on our end, but it still feels kind of like as if they had drawn a "heart" shape together.
• Costello and Abbott answering to the nicknames they have been given.
• Heptapods go from being Eldritch Abominations that humans have serious debilitating shock just from seeing them to the sort of friendly aliens little children make clay sculptures of — and the fact humans in thousands of years will reward them for giving them world peace.
  • Considering how powerful and imposing the Heptapods are, the way they create safe spaces for humans to interact with them comes off as adorably gentle. Between meetings, they're balancing the gases in the nave to ensure breathable air. Their ships never touch the surface in order to imply an invitation rather than an imposition. The elevator-like capsule they pick Louise up in for their final meeting is intimidatingly dark inside and moves without regard for her sense of balance - but all things considered the flaws in the method appear clumsy rather than apathetic; an attempt to conform to the human concept of vehicles despite their own transportation methods being virtually instant. They even invent a question-mark-like squiggle to add to their written language to help us towards asking them what their intentions are.
• Louise leading a TED-style symposium on the Heptapod language. It's the only time we see her completely relaxed and happy.
• Louise and Shang closing the loop.