Gattaca: Cinema With Style

Long overdue for a movie review, and since so much of what passes for cinema these days is not worth discussing, I thought for today's post we'd look back to one of my all-time favorite sci-fi movies, GATTACA, a story if I may borrow from the poster taglines, that shows us a world where we have discrimination down to a science and proves that there is no gene for the human spirit.   

Movie blurb from YouTube: Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin and Jude Law star in this engrossing sci-fi thriller about an all-too-human man who dares to defy a system obsessed with genetic perfection. Hawke stars as Vincent, an "In-Valid" who assumes the identity of a member of the genetic elite to pursue his goal of traveling into space with the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. However, a week before his mission, a murder marks Vincent as a suspect. With a relentless investigator in pursuit and the colleague he has fallen in love with beginning to suspect his deception, Vincent's dreams steadily unravel.

Not only has director, Andrew Niccol, (The Truman Show, The Terminal) crafted a beautiful story, well told and well acted, but he has created an alternate reality that makes my heart ache each time I see it. The costumes are divine, but it doesn't stop there. The design of the film has all the classic elegance of the 1950s futurism that I adore down to every last detail.

Niccol achieved this timeless look by using zero CGI at a time when CGI was exploding onto the movie making scene and frankly causing most of the films that used it to age like milk on a radiator. Niccol focused on practical effects like miniatures and forced perspective and used existing buildings built in the 1950s and 60s that captured the look. The result is an elegant world that draws you in from the first moment to the last. Released in 1997, and unfortunately buried through confusing marketing and a terrible release date, it flopped at the box office. I went on opening night that October in '97 and loved it right away. As Ethan Hawke once said in 2007 interview about his favorite but most overlooked work, GATTACA, "Time is the ally of good films, " and this film has stood the test of time, being just as relevant and poignant 29 years later as it was on its release date and it is a stunning reminder that film making can be/should be an art form. Well worth a watch for fashionistas and sci-fi fans, and film lovers alike.