| Reviewer Roundup |
| 1. |
 | MrBrown |
| review follows |
|  |
| 2. |
| Harvey Karten |
| read the review |
| --- |
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Review by MrBrown
3 stars out of 4
What if the world somehow found a way to make discrimination into a
science? That is the provocative question presented by Gattaca, the
intriguing and atmospheric debut of writer-director Andrew Niccol.
Those looking for a more effects-laden science fiction film will be
disappointed by Gattaca, which centers more on drama than on pricey
pyrotechnics. Set in "the not-too distant future," the film is set in a
society where one's station in life is determined solely by genetics.
Advances in genetic engineering have made natural breeding obsolete; to
ensure a promising future for their children, prospective parents turn to
geneticists to create their babies in a lab, where they take the most
desirable genetic traits of the parents--and weed out their most
undesirable--to create a "perfect" child. This genetic elite, called
"Valid," are given all the golden opportunities in life--jobs,
wealth--while the "In-valids," those created from natural breeding, make up
the poor lower class.
One of these "faith children," as they are called, is Vincent Freeman
(Ethan Hawke), a precocious young man who dreams of flying to the stars.
Even though his genetic makeup makes it impossible for him to realize his
dream, he does so anyway--by dealing with a black market DNA broker (Tony
Shalhoub), who arranges Vincent to swap places with Jerome Morrow (played
with scene-stealing gusto by Jude Law), a valid whose genes are of no use
after being paralyzed from the waist down. As Jerome, Vincent builds a
successful career at the aeronautics corporation Gattaca and is all set to
fly on a mission to Titan, one of Saturn's moons. But after the director
of Gattaca is murdered, and an In-valid eyelash is found in the ensuing
investigation, it seems like only a matter of time before "Jerome" is exposed.
Much of this material harkens back to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, but
I must give credit to Niccol, who paints a vivid, funny, yet disturbing
portrait of this future society. The best moments come from the little
details in the script. For example, when Vincent is born, the doctors can
immediately determine his lifespan and what illnesses he is likely to
suffer from; In-valids are sometimes referred to by the slur
"de-gene-erate"; and some rather curious dating rituals: when Vincent
expresses interest in Valid but slightly imperfect colleague Irene (a
strangely uninteresting Uma Thurman, in a thankless role), she offers him a
strand of her hair for a DNA check and says, "Let me know if you're still
interested." Niccol's fascinating vision also extends to the striking
cinematography, production and costume design by Slawomir Idziak, Jan
Roelfs, and Colleen Atwood, respectively. They obviously did not have a
substantially large budget to work with, but they succeed in creating an
otherworldly look through minimalism. Buildings are shiny and smooth;
people dress up in nice suits; and color is all but absent--everything
seems constantly bathed in some shade of grey or silver, perfectly
conveying the sense of coldness and lack of passion that dominates this
glacial society.
Niccol's attention to detail does not extend, however, to Gattaca's basic
plot mechanics, which are rather contrived. The murder mystery plot turns
out to be little more than a device to put Vincent in danger of being
discovered and does not reach a satisfying conclusion on its own. A
supposed plot twist involving one of the murder's investigators (Loren
Dean) is predictable and uninspired, and a sibling rivalry subplot explored
early in the film between Vincent and his genetically engineered younger
brother is revisited later to very little effect; it just serves as an
extraneous, redundant underscoring of the point that genetics are not
everything. The one relationship that is supposed to lend some warmth to
the proceedings, the romance between Vincent and Irene, fails to ignite;
Hawke and Thurman may have generated sparks off camera, but very little, if
any, of that rapport is displayed onscreen.
When I first saw the trailer for Gattaca, I and a few other people
snickered at the terribly banal tagline "There is no gene for the human
spirit." As cornball as it is, that simple statement quite effectively
sums up the true nature of the film. For all of its big Hollywood sci-fi
trappings, Gattaca is essentially an intimate human story, and an
unexpectedly moving and inspiring one at that. By the time it is over, one
may just find oneself with (somewhat) renewed faith in the human race.
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