Zachary FenellGattaca
January 6th 2009 19:04
Gattaca, 1997
For quite a few months, I'd been trying to get my mother to sit down and watch this movie with me. It has always been in my Top 5 for a variety of reasons, and while she and I have generally had a good overlap of interest in movies, she stalwartly refused to watch it.
"Come on, Mom! You're going to love it! It's right up your alley!"
"But I don't want to watch a prison movie!"
"..."
Apparently, Gattaca sounds a lot like the word Attica which is, in her defense, a prison. However, to deny oneself of the former because you think it's the latter... well, let's just say that Thanksgiving Dinner is going to see this story trotted out for a while.
Gattaca stars Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman in the roles that allegedly sparked their off-screen romance, and you can really see the chemistry starting to cook. When they look at each other, you just wish that you could be the person they're looking at - not because of any particular fixation on Uma or Ethan specifically, but to receive that kind of unconditional adoration would be the pinnacle of personal contentment and satisfaction for any human.
And besides the lovey-dovey romance, there's an incredible story being woven that speaks to the deepest levels of non-conformist desire. A man whose parents left everything to genetic chance is discriminated against in the worst possible way - his only dream and the one thing in the world that he is better at than anyone else is kept prohibitively distant by the fact that he was not specifically engineered to make him that way.
For those of us who are prone to feeling alienated and a little outside of the norm of society, this film rubs salves on those wounds. He doesn't accomplish what he does by taking on someone else's identity - he uses someone else's identity to accomplish what he could already do. Gifted kids and smart cookies everywhere will recognize this as what many of us had to do to get through public school: he Played The System.
The murder mystery is great spice to a beautiful story - there was a spirited discussion amongst the viewers about the who-dun-it. Jude Law's performance is both heart-breaking and soul-stirring. I'd never really considered him attractive until this movie, but maybe I have a thing for legitimately mopey Brits.
Though Gattaca counts solidly as being in the Science Fiction genre, action junkies will not get their fix from this film. It's thoughtful, thought-provoking, and deep.
I give it five stars for brilliant writing, beautiful acting, and profound themes.
5 Stars
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