Gattaca, written and directed by Andrew Niccol - 9 out of 10

Gattaca, written and directed by Andrew Niccol
9 out of 10


Gattaca is a thought provoking Science fiction film that proposes some very important themes.

Although twenty one years old, this motion picture is still very relevant and feels modern even today.
Studies have shown that some of the points in the film are indeed accurate.

We are genetically predisposed towards one disease or another.
Humanity has not reached the stage suggested in Gattaca.

But the moment will come when we will have to answer questions like:

Do we want to know the disease that may affect our children?
Would we rather have perfect, engineered offspring?
To what extent would we ask for the intervention of science into our future, family and life?

Ethan Hawke portrays with talent the determined Vincent Freeman.
When he is born, the infant is tested and the parents told that he has a life expectancy of only about thirty years.

He is expected to suffer from a heart condition that would render him "invalid" for quite a few domains and it would kill him at a young age.
In this future, there would be laws preventing the discrimination of people who have various conditions.

Nevertheless, companies are very good at bypassing the law and they collect DNA samples from a handshake, the door handle and then analyze it and reject candidates that do not have the near perfect, sometimes the perfect potential.
Born as he is with a far from perfect constitution, the dream that the hero has of flying to he starts seems doomed.

But there may be a way around this seemingly insurmountable obstacle, for a man offers services that address this issue.
He has a candidate that could help Vincent Freeman surpass his condition as a janitor at the space agency.

The man who would offer his DNA samples is Jerome Morrow aka Jude Law, a man with a perfect genetic code, but who is now a paraplegic following a car accident, that he would later reveal that it was no accident at all.
The protagonist would have to pay and in exchange he would be provided with urine and blood samples that would allow him to fulfill his dream:

Fly to the stars...

They have a very sophisticated technique to provide the liquids for the tests and everything is in order until a murder is committed.
 A program director is killed, another is played by Gore Vidal, who turns out to be a suspect.

The police arrive on the premises and Vincent Freeman is in danger.
He is not the murderer, but the investigation may uncover his real identity.

Indeed, when looking for clues, the detectives find a human hair that they trace to the janitor who had worked on the premises years before and who is the prime suspect.
One of the investigators is played by the wonderful Alan Arkin.

A romantic relationship develops between the aspiring cosmonaut and Irene Cassini aka Uma Thurman, for some time the real life wife of Ethan Hawke.
There are some close calls.

When samples of blood are taken from veins, Vincent manages to avoid exposure.
But the detectives are getting ever closer.

The film is rewarding in that it invites meditation on important issues of the present and near future and it is also engaging.