Gattaca (1997)

Welcome to the world of the “not so distant future.” This is a world where genetic perfection is a must and anyone who doesn’t have the goods is considered subservient. Ethan Hawke plays one such “De-Gene-erate” (as they are called in the movie). His only aspiration is to travel to space, but the powers that be won’t let him because he has shit genes. For whatever reason, Ethan Hawke’s idiotic parents decided to have a regular birth with no genetic modification. They thought they would do the “right thing” and leave things up to chance. What were they thinking? Didn’t they know that would mess up his life forever? No one wants anything to do with these impure beasts. They end up being janitors at the space station, never the astronaut.

GATTACA is the struggle of Ethan Hawke as he tries to trick the powers that be and get into space. He does this with the help of a very drunk Jude Law in a wheelchair. This is one of my favorite Jude Law performances. He is such a drunk, cheeky bastard. Another great Jude Law performance is I HEART HUCKABESS. Check it out, if you have not already. Jude Law’s character (Jerome Morrow) is a “valid” that loans Ethan Hawke his genetically superior blood, hair and urine. It’s a very complex and well-paced film.

One of my favorite details of the film is that the color white can’t be found in the color scheme. It’s as if they set the white balance to gold. The entire film is golden and gorgeous to look at. It gives the impression of the future without having all sorts of crazy sci-fi bullshit (blinking lights, flying cars, etc.). Making a good film about the future is all about the subtle details. All of the technology seems appropriate for the times that they live in. They never give a specific date that the story takes place. It merely says, “the not so distant future.” I like that a lot. To me, that says, “Don’t worry so much about the year, just enjoy the story.” That is exactly what GATTACA does. The focus is not on the world of GATTACA, it’s about the Ethan Hawke getting to space.

Ethan Hawke and Jude Law look a lot a like in this movie. Part of the scam is that Ethan Hawke is masquerading as Jude Law, but no one can tell the difference. All white people look the same. The film has some minor racist subtext, but that’s OK. It would be funny if Andrew Niccol (writer / director of this project) were a black guy and making a comment on how all white people look the same, but that is not the case. He is in fact from New Zealand and wrote THE TRUMAN SHOW. That movie is sooooo white.

In the world of GATTACA, parents can design the traits of their baby (even making them less susceptible to acquiring gambling addictions) and I don’t think we are far from this. In community college, I remember being asked, “If you could, would you genetically modify your baby to make them immune to terminal illnesses and debilitating conditions (like mental retardation, leukemia, etc.)?” I thought long and hard about this and always came to the same conclusion, that I would most likely not. I like leaving things up to chance. I also don’t like the idea of there being a super race of people who live forever. I am most worried about over population. But as we learned from THE FIFTH ELEMENT, we can just keep building up and use flying cars. Hmmm. Now I am rethinking this whole thing. Maybe I do want a super hot heterosexual baby who will become really rich. Then my kid could pay for me to live in a really nice retirement home. I like this idea. Let’s do it!

Well, if GATTACA taught us anything, we should not do this. Then we are creating a world of prejudice and discrimination (that is even worse than now). I changed my mind back to my original position, no genetic modification on my children. I just got caught up in the idea of living in fancy retirement home (you know, one with an indoor pool and dining room).

Did you know the title GATTACA comes from the four nitrogenous bases of DNA? Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine and Thymine. A, C, G, T = GATTACA. Science Fiction Film Noir. I love it!