Review of Gattaca (1997) by Paige W — 20 Nov 2010

Strikingly different from sci-fi thrillers that had come out that same year (including Luc Besson's major studio debut, "The Fifth Element" - "Leon" was an indie studio production distributed by Columbia in the US), Andrew Niccol's (the guy who wrote "The Truman Show") "Gattaca" is more along the lines of Ridley Scott's seminal and immortal "Blade Runner" not that it's a dramatic thriller (with some action thrown in to appease those types) but that it's a satire on something deemed crazy (in this case, liberal eugenics) and placing it in a deeper concept (the destruction of the individual, the corporate world).

This film is an extremely humbling portrayal of what human life would be like if our genes mandated where we would go in our lives. Ethan Hawke plays Vincent, a naturally-born child whose propensity for a countless amount of genetic mutations, along with myopia and a mysterious heart condition, lead him to a life of cleaning toilets. However, his dreams lie within becoming an astronaut - and, with an exceptional IQ, he manages to go beyond where no "valid" has gone before: by buying a person's identity (in this case, a crippled swimmer who has the perfect DNA but a strange bout of alcoholism) and some meticulous cleaning regiments, he can finally accomplish his dreams. However, the death of a mission direction almost spoils his chance into going to space - somebody has linked him to the murder. Or did they?

One thing I love about this film is that it doesn't try to shove in so much future tech at us as possible. In fact, I think it's quite reserved as far as dystopian movies go - the world looks like ours. People dress like us. People eat like us, drink like us, drive in cars like us (though with better electric cells than us) - and that's why it's so scary. We know that this form of eugenics is happening around us right now. People are barred from riding on space shuttles just because some people feel that their heart isn't perfect enough. People dress the same - the yuppies in their endless circle. People, just because of a mental disorder or two, are determined to be slobs who leech off the government. Rarely do you see somebody that has the willpower to step out of his or her clique and become something that they dream of. This movie, despite the hero succeeding with his goals in illegal ways, shows us that anybody can accomplish the impossible.

This is one of the most uplifting movies of all time and also just one of the greatest to have come out in the 1990s. Who could have thought that a sci-fi drama about DNA regulation could be this good. The acting's outstanding, the camerawork is beautiful, and the story is just great.

Shame that nobody appreciated it back then - it bombed at the box office!