Gattaca was a fun experience, and a really well-crafted science fiction piece. In the world of Gattaca, genetic manipulation has resulted in an odd sort of fatalism — the moment you’re born, you are told what your probabilities for death are. It’s much safer and much more socially beneficial, to create children through a lab, where the best parts of the mother and father can be combined and the genetic deficiencies can be eliminated. The main character, Vincent, is born with a probability of heart failure by the time he’s 30. His parents have a younger brother, Anton, who is designed to be superior to Vincent in every way. Vincent grows up in a society where there is a lot of prejudice against him for being a natural birth, and he is told that he’ll never be able to achieve his true dream: to be an astronaut. But Vincent doesn’t accept his fate, and when he realizes that he is capable of beating his brother in a swimming race by sheer determination and will, he leaves his family and finds his way into Gattaca, the mission control center for space shuttle launches.
Vincent starts off as a janitor, but eventually finds a way to infiltrate the organization. Gattaca conducts regular urine, blood and hair follicle tests to ensure that its people are legitimate — the best and the brightest, not genetic inferiors. Vincent’s way around this is to use a “borrowed ladder” – he partners with a man named Jerome who is genetically superior, but who has lost the use of his legs in an accident. (In this world, invalids are also looked down upon, particularly when they’re supposed to be genetically superior.) Vincent’s job is to pretend to be Jerome so he can become a navigator aboard a mission to the moon of Titan. Jerome agrees to supply Vincent with all the genetic material needed to pull off the ruse in exchange for a cut of Vincent’s salary.
Unfortunately, a week before Vincent’s mission is scheduled to take off, a murder occurs, and a police sweep finds an eyelash that links him to the crime. His ruse becomes much more tense as the police begin more aggressive DNA sweeps, and Vincent knows it’s only a matter of time before he’ll be discovered. All he has to do is make it one more week until his shuttle takes off, and nothing will matter anymore. But unfortunately, one of the detectives has a suspicion about what’s really going on… and he’s determined to bring Vincent to justice, even if Vincent didn’t commit the actual murder.
Gattaca is really more of a cautionary tale than a futurist film, and while the sterile, harsh world of the film seems believable enough while you’re watching it, the idea of a society obsessed with genetic probabilities is a little far-fetched. But the idea of the film — that human achievement is greater than any probability determined by scientific understanding — is profound, and the way the film is constructed makes for an interesting series of revelations about the characters.
One of the more interesting things going on in the background involves a woman, Irene, who has the same heart condition that Vincent does, but in a much milder form. This condition doesn’t preclude her from working at Gattaca, but it does prevent her from going into space, no matter how capable she may be. Irene is so mired in the probabilities of death that she believes them. Once she learns what Vincent is, her entire world opens up to a new range of possibilities.
This film was written and directed by Andrew Niccol, and it’s the only one he’s done that’s been what I would call “hard sci-fi.” His follow-up film, The Truman Show, was also very good, though much softer and less realistic. S1m0ne, a movie about a film producer who creates a complete digital film star, was really lacking in plot development. I never got around to seeing Lord of War or The Terminal, though I’m told it neither has any hint of science fiction. I’m hoping Niccol delivers another film like Gattaca down the road — it’s one of the most consistent hard science fiction films I’ve ever seen, and the fact that it’s not based on a book or cribbed from another film makes it all the more appealing