Something that is surprising to absolutely no one in my personal life is the fact that I love nonverbal communication. I tend to categorize aspects of my life into understandable sections or relatable information in order to avoid in-person dialogue most of the time. Sometimes going so far as to rely on memes to convey emotions when I don’t feel like typing out a full paragraph.
While I have been noticing more pieces of nonverbal communication within the media I watch/read lately, and I’m always happy to bring attention to them! While these selections do not cover every single area of nonverbal communication, they highlight some important aspects as well as include a few of my favorite styles of storytelling through them.
Kinesiology is the study of body movement; how a person would walk, sit, stand, and general gestures with their arms. While body language itself is how those gestures are interpreted. For example, crossing your arms could either mean you’re not receptive to a person’s message or that you’re just cold and forgot a jacket.
- Project Hail Mary [2025]
Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller / PG-13/ 2:36 / Science Fiction Adventure
Based on the novel of the same name by Andy Weir published in 2021, the story follows Ryland Grace, a middle-school science teacher tasked with solving the mystery as to why the sun is dying. Years later, this journey would be a little easier if he could remember how he ended up on his spaceship, even better if he knew who he was.
Aside from Ryan Gosling flailing about the ship, which properly conveys his confusion and lack of awareness, the main reason I added this movie to the kinesics section is Rocky. An alien rock-shaped creature that Ryland Grace interacts with throughout the story. Since Rocky doesn’t have a face or eyes, they rely on gestures like a thumbs up to interact and interpret meaning until a translator can be made. Through those gestures, Grace realizes that Rocky can “see” through echolocation and sound, and makes adjustments to ensure communication runs smoothly between the two of them.
- Resident Evil [2026]
Directed by Zach Cregger / R / 1:34 / Horror
Attempting to deliver an important package to Raccoon City Hospital, a medical courier named Bryan finds himself in the middle of an outbreak. Facing mutated creatures along the way to survival, Bryan leads the audience to question why he doesn’t just run away.
Whenever I think about body movement and language in full, zombie movies always come to mind. Especially live action movies that involve a lot of choreography to get the style right. Austin Abrams, the main character, engages with these mutations with a lot of fear. The movie is set during the winter, so he has his arms crossed most of the time to stay warm while also coming across as hesitant to move forward due to “zombie-related reasons.”
- Spoke – Kat Leyh
Published Fall 2026 / Adult / Graphic Novel / Post Apocalyptic
A nonverbal cargo courier, Spoke, works with her community to navigate the seasonal changes of a world where all the power sources and industrialism were wiped out. Teaching her new friend ASL to better communicate amongst everyone, Spoke also works on upgrading her bicycle to deliver materials and food across the pathways between villages.
I was given an advanced readers copy of this through NetGalley in exchange for a review a few months back, and somehow forgot that its official publication date would be this week! Kat Leyh has been a favorite author of mine since 2020, her illustrations of the post-apocalyptic setting made the story so bright and warm. I loved how Spoke communicated with her friends when signing isn’t a direct option and could depend on body language alone to communicate when issues with the weather and building pathways took up the use of their hands.
Vocalics or Paralinguistics covers the different ways something can be said. Whispering, yelling, or rushing through a simple statement can imply that there is more to it. You’re less likely to believe an “I’m fine” if that person yelled it at you.
- The River Has Roots – Amal El-Mohtar
Published Spring 2025 / Adult / Novella / Fantasy
The Hawthorn sisters, Esther and Ysabel, live on the edge of Faerie and often walk amongst the enchanted forest surrounding them to harvest willows. Singing to the trees to relay their gratitude, they’ve set up quite the lives for themselves. That life is threatened by a suitor who doesn’t understand the boundaries placed by Esther’s desire to maintain the connections she created.
Faerie as a concept takes advantage of not only a person’s word but how they said it. Answers to a riddle can be misconstrued if an emphasis isn’t placed on the right part. Which is what comes into play with a person’s tone of voice, your name cannot be mentioned in Faerie if you do not want to remain there. A song can be sung but the lyrics must be thought out before being spoken.
- The Boogeyman [2023]
Directed by Rob Savage / PG-13 / 1:38 / Supernatural Horror
A family grieving a sudden loss are slowly being stalked by a supernatural creature feeding off of their trauma and fear. Sawyer and her older sister, Sadie, are desperate for support from their emotionally absent father. A man who would rather ignore the issues surrounding their house, the monster in the shadows, and any memory of his late wife.
The Boogeyman in this story has the ability to mimic other people’s voices in order to draw its prey closer. Sawyer is consistently followed by a creature in the shadows and what she thinks is her sister playing a cruel prank. While Sadie is trying to get answers towards a scary situation with a house guest that led to the Boogeyman stalking them all.
- Mickey 17 [2025]
Directed by Bong Joon Ho / R / 2:17 / Science Fiction Comedy
Mickey Barnes, in an attempt to escape from death and doom, has signed away his autonomy to become an “expendable” for a human expedition to colonize a planet. Experiment after experiment, conditions on the planet get nicer at the sacrifice of an unwilling subject. On his 17th iteration, Mickey comes face to face with none other than himself.
For full clarity, this movie was in the body language section for the longest time in the draft phase as the main difference between Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 is their stature; one is folded into himself while the other is tense. However, Robert Pattinson’s vocal range for this movie was entertaining! Mickey 17 has a nasal tone and with almost every sentence sounding breathy and unsure of himself, it allows for Mickey 18’s rage to come through clearly in his shorter sentences when he’s yelling at someone.
Haptics focuses on touch, like the feedback given on a controller when playing a video game. When it shakes, that is a haptic feature. Proxemics focuses on the different layers of space a person has, from personal space when talking to friends is still close but if you’re in a room with strangers, you’re more likely to give them 4-12 feet of space.
- Only A Monster – Vanessa Len
Published Winter 2022 / Young Adult / Fantasy
Joan aims to celebrate the summer the right way! She lives with her late mother’s odd family in London and works at a historic building next to her crush, Nick. It’s not until she finds out that Nick is a monster slayer that she discovers herself and her family are monsters that can steal time from others with just a simple touch.
I would love to go back to when I first read this chaotic novel, back before this beloved story ended in cliffhangers needed to create the two more books released after this. Joan is truly just thrown into a beautifully established world and requires near constant supervising so she doesn’t cause an accidental time-war by simply breathing.
- Psych [2006-2014]
Created by Steve Franks / 121 Episodes / TV-PG / Murder Mystery Comedy
Shawn Spencer has convinced the entirety of the Santa Barbara Police Department that he is a psychic so he can assist with solving crimes. He and his best friend Burton Guster have never truly stepped down from a bit, they open a detective agency to work as consultants for the most confusing crimes.
This was more of a silly addition to this section, because Shawn and Gus are almost constantly in each other’s personal / intimate space. Shawn even using Gus’ head as a magic eight-ball for fortune telling! Shawn’s ability to ignore certain social cues to get into the personal space of dangerous people to solve crimes is upsettingly impressive. Psych has been one of my favorite shows ever since I was a kid, and I just adore this chaos.
- Pushing Daisies [2007]
Created by Bryan Fuller / 22 Episodes / TV-PG / Murder Mystery Comedy
Ned has a rare gift: The ability to resurrect a dead person for a limited amount of time through touch. Though, the price of such an act reveals itself through another person dying in their place, and if he touches them again they’ll never be brought back. This crime-solving procedural shows Ned, his revived crush, and a private investigator solving crimes through a whimsically dark lens.
I have been wanting to watch this show for so long, yet when it comes to actually starting it, I get upset that it was cancelled before it truly began. From what I’ve seen of the show through clips and social media posts, the relationship between Ned and the revived crush, Chuck, is a great example of haptics. They literally cannot touch each other or she will go back to being dead, so they create space between each other for survival in this weird dynamic.
Chronemics is the study of time. But in a communication aspect, it can relate to the length of time surrounding messages sent and received. For example, communication about late assignments are often frowned upon unless the request for an extension is placed early enough in advance.
- ShipShock – Caroline O’Donoghue
Published Summer 2025 / Young Adult / Fantasy
Every world in this universe has a different relationship to time. The ability to navigate through it is taxing, as the hours move faster and faster causing rapid aging. Moon, a traveling salesman, helps a young woman find her way back to Earth, though they end up in the middle of a war between worlds that should have been separated before the shipshock, a time illness, sets in.
I have been waiting very impatiently for the second book in this duology. There were trains that could travel through worlds, repercussions to actions they didn’t even understand, and the cliffhanger at the end has me watching the author’s announcements to make sure I have a pre-order set up the second it’s possible!
- About Time [2013]
Directed by Richard Curtis / R / 2:03 / Romantic Comedy
Tim learns from his father that all the men in their family have the ability to time travel within their own life. With this knowledge, Tim sets out to make things better for himself, trying as many times as it takes to achieve the ‘perfect’ life without grief, awkwardness, or despair; the things that he cannot avoid without losing what he holds dear.
This is another movie that I think I would enjoy but have never attempted to watch. Mostly because it is a romance film and seems like Tim will give me second hand embarrassment. I do think that his views on time align with chronemics quite well. In the synopsis alone, he puts a lot of weight on trying over and over again to get the best communication with the people he loves.
- The Space Between Here & Now – Sarah Suk
Published Fall 2023 / Young Adult / Magical Realism.
Aimee Roh has a rare condition that can transport her to a moment in her life upon smelling something linked to that memory, which has affected her ability to remain in the moment. After disappearing for nearly nine hours in a memory involving her mother before she left, Aimee decides to travel to Korea for answers and maybe a cure for her condition before she starts to lose more time.
I’ve often considered time as an enemy to memory and grief. It can wear down a person’s connection to something or warp a memory from something kind into a trigger. This novel strangely covered a sense I didn’t think to write about, smell. But it ties in so well with time in how Aimee had once smelled a meal she recognized and then was sent back to when she first had it. A positive memory until she didn’t want to keep going back to that time because it would remind her of her mother. I would like to reread this one soon.
And that concludes my current selection of media for these types of nonverbals. I am always looking for more to add to this list with little justifications attached, but didn’t form this article until watching Resident Evil [2026] last week. My favorite part about communications is being able to sort things into categories, and nonverbals are everywhere so while I focused on one aspect of each to tie into a section, others can be seen as well if you’re analyzising it that way.
