SFRevu Goes to the Movies: GATTACA
British filmmaker Andrew Niccol wanted to make a film longer than 60 seconds. With the release of GATTACA, billed by Columbia Pictures as a "science fiction thriller", he has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Alas. Not only is GATTACA longer than a minute, its pacing appears to stretch the time spent watching the movie like some relativistic time dilation.
Ethan Hawke (EXPLORERS, DEAD POET'S SOCIETY, REALITY BITES) plays Vincent, a child conceived out of love and good intention, into a society where conception is a matter of careful genetic screening and manipulation. Although he escapes the intervention of the pre-natal geneticist, at the moment of his birth he receives his sentencing as a drop of his blood is read into sequence analyzers to be interpreted like the entrails of a sacrificial fowl. Damned by a litany of probable shortcomings, including a tendency towards violence and an expected coronary failure by age 30, Vincent is a willful weakling, ever in the shadow of his genetically flawless brother, the product of his parents' recantation of nature and society's taste for gene tailoring.
Though the odds are on the genetically perfect, Vincent possesses that popular element of classic SF - the indomitable spirit, manifested in the desire to become an astronaut. Specifically a "Navigator Third Class" on the upcoming first mission to Titan, a role that none but the most genetically pure could be considered for. Vincent may not be perfect, but he never accepts his limitations. Through a very special broker he finds a member of the genetic elite who has suffered a crippling injury and assumes his identity through a bizarre symbiosis where the cripple, Jerome (Jude Law) provides him with a name and enough body waste and clippings to fool the genetic scanners at the GATTACA space agency. Why they call it GATTACA is one of the film's little mysteries. Nobody ever says. Vincent, now Jerome, rises to the top of the organization and reaches out to accept the coveted space on the Titan mission.
When the agency's director is beaten to death with a keyboard and the entire organization is subjected to increased scrutiny, Jerome/Vincent's deception becomes even more fragile. At the same time he falls in love with Irene (Uma Thurman - BATMAN AND ROBIN, PULP FICTION), despite the androgynous 1940s business suits that everyone wears. Will he manage to avoid the murder investigation and join the Titan mission? Will Irene lose her flawed heart to Jerome/Vincent? Will this movie ever end?
A remarkable cast assembled to create this deadpan dystopia. Alan Arkin plays a future Colombo on the killer's trail. Gore Vidal is the Mission Director who has devoted his life to the exploration of space, Ernest Borgnine (Borg-9? Any relation to Seven of 9?) is a janitor whose role in the film is only hinted at. His real contribution to the film is lying, I suspect, on the editing room floor.
Andrew Niccol wrote and directed this bit of supposedly serious SF, but I suspect that he's never read SF and is a bit put off by it. Mr. Niccol's future is as devoid of trappings of technology as he could make it. The only science evident exists in black boxes that pop up pictures of the owners of whatever bit of hair, skin or spittle is fed into them. Evenings are spent in classic smoke filled salons in formal evening wear and "hovercraft and epaulets" have been strictly banned from the set. Mr. Niccols has taken it on himself to reinvent Science Fiction by removing the techno-glitter from Sci-Fi and creating the world in a retro-classic image. Although the cast praised his vision, comments by the writer/director are conspicuously absent from the studio's press kit. His moral message of the inadequacy of class distinction is delivered with little enthusiasm, and less plausibility. Yes, it is a frightening prospect that testing may reveal so much about us that we never dream of challenging our proscribed limits. No, I didn't believe that Jerome/Vincent could get away with it, or even that he should. Worse, I strongly doubt that anyone will remain interested in the film long enough to come to their own conclusion. Even if you were to remove the minute traces of SF from the film it would teeter shakily on its underpinnings of Mystery and Romance. If studios cannot bear the thought of turning to authors of SF for good SF scripts, they should stick to Sci-Fi SFX extravaganzas.
If GATTACA is the Science Fiction Drama of the year, 'tis a lean year indeed.
reviewed by: Ernest Lilley - SFRevu http://members.aol.com/sfrevu
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