Gattaca (1997)

 

100 Best Science Fiction Movies from Slant Magazine

 

#86. Gattaca (1997)

 

There’s an old cliché, “Yesterday’s Science Fiction is today’s Science fact.” That statement is generally false as most SF embraces possibilities that are too remote to have been realized in the 94-years of the Genre (the Genre’s official Birthday is usually listed as 1929 when Editor Hugo Gernsback gave it a name, but even before that, it’d been popular for more-than a century); SF also, often, cheerfully, violates the Laws of Physics, Biology, etc; and we should not forget that even the best SF works are less about making specific predictions as much as Escapism, Satire or literalizing some Metaphor. But every once in a while, a work comes along that really is trying to tell you what’s most likely really coming. Yes, even those often get it wrong, but not always. And Prediction is exactly what this film is trying to do.

 

Andrew Niccol may eventually eclipse Nigel Kneale as the greatest SF Screenwriter who ever lived. He does have some competition (examples: the Nolan brothers and Alex Garland), but it seems to me that’s not the main thing that could withhold that accolade from him. His best work often steps outside the Genre stylistically, though generally not in content. He’s also a Director and prefers to Direct his own scripts rather than surrender creative control to anyone, this even though his scripts and script-stories are sought after by the World’s Greatest Directors (Peter Wier and Steven Spielberg are examples). And he’s a fine Director, which is on displays here.

 

But this film also lost money.

 

The movies he Directs are mostly very good, but they all have a devil-of-a-time making money. They don’t bomb by the way; they just don’t make enough money to allow him to rise in rank as a Director and it seems to me that fact holds back his reputation as a Screenwriter somewhat.

 

“Gattaca” is set in a far-too-believable Near-Future Dystopia where Pre-Natal Genetic Engineering is a major Industry, though this phrase is not used in the film, there’s a Real-World name for this, “Direct to Consumer (DTC) Genetics.” All the well-heeled parents are doing it. They aren’t breeding a Race of Comic-Book-Style Supermen, but Supermen none-the-less. Healthier, smarter, with physical improvements like a Concert Pianist with twelve long, nimble, fingers. In the Real-World USA we are already in a Society where advancement within our Class-system is declining (it has been since the mid-1970s) and in this Future it is impossible, because in competition for every high-paying job, we of the “Faith-Birth” will face a dozen Engineered “Valids” who was designed to do the job even better from before birth. This is a real possibility, perhaps an inevitability, and it stinks of Eugenics, but that isn’t the main subject of the film. This film is about the cruel indifference built into Meritocracies, a bias that the USA is not embarrassed admitting having, and how that bias is profoundly hypocritical, and no one seems to be obligated to admit that.

 

Think of this Brave New World this way: A decade after this film was released, 2008, Bioinformatican Dr. Sonja Prohaska decided to play a game with her colleagues. She tried to go a full day without saying the word “Gene.” This game had nothing to do with this film, it had more to do with the search for new language because the field of Genetics, never simple, was rapidly getting too complex for the established language. Still, relate her game to “Gattica’s” Future-World, s a place where no one can get to the end of their day without talking about Genetics, even if they don’t really understand it. As language is proving restrictive for Prohaska, Genetics is a trap for all who live within this World. Said Prohaska, “It was like having someone tie your hand behind your back.”

 

We are first introduced to Jerome Eugene Morrow preforming his morning rituals, which are a bit odd. It is revealed that these disciplines are necessary to disguise his true Genetic Identity, because he’s not really Jerome, but Vincent Freeman. Vincent is a Faith-Birth who disguised himself as a Valid to get a job at Gattaca Aerospace and is a Candidate for the first flight to Saturn’s Moon Titan, something no Faith-Birth would ever be considered for, especially one projected to have a short Life-Expectancy like Vincent.

 

(Gattaca is a symbolic name, based on the letters G, A, T, and C, which stand for Guanine, Adenine, Thymine, and Cytosine, the four Nucleobases of DNA. It also rhymes with the famous Prison Attica)

 

We are soon in a half-hour-long flashback that begins with Vincent’s birth. When his parents, Marie and Antonio (Jayne Brook and Elias Koteas) are informed of the baby’s Genetic Profile, Antonio, doesn’t give his first-born his name. The second son, a Valid, becomes “Anton Jr.”

 

Regarding Anton Jr, there’s the scene where the Doctor (Blair Underwood) says, "The child is still you, but the best of you," and then reads off the options for Anton Jr. to the expectant parents like he’s reading off a restaurant menu. It’s grimly funny. The Doctor asks about preferred race; well obviously White, like the parents, but they’re mildly embarrassed to say so, because the Doctor is Black. This is real early in the emergence of the DTC Genetics, and by the time Vincent grows up, the only Black people we see are Janitors.

 

Years unfold, both Vincent and Anton Jr. are each played by two child actors as they grow (Mason Gamble and Chad Christ for Vincent, Vincent Neilson and William Lee Scott for Anton Jr.). Throughout all, Vincent is resentful and competitive with Anton Jr who is more loved. Vincent proves indominable, even obsessive, at succeeding when everyone else tells him he’ll fail.

 

Adult Vincent can't get a decent job. He’s reduced to cleaning the Gattaca building. He formulates a plan. Though an Identity Swapper who calls himself “German” (Tony Shalhoub, and this is not the only time Shalhoud, has been deliberately and amusingly cast against the claimed ethnicity of his Character) he meets the real Jerome (Jude Law, nice casting as Law is definitely an Actor too pretty for his own good). Jerome is a Genetically perfect Valid whose promising career as a Professional Swimmer ended in a paralyzing accident. Says German, “You could go anywhere with this guy's helix under your arm.”

 

Though Vincent’s goal is to be an Astronaut, Director Niccol chooses to keep the Space Ships essentially invisible, while evocative water symbols abound, sometimes even when the water in unseen; examples of this are crippled Jerome and a conversation between Vincent, pretending to be Jerome, with Irene (Ulma Therman), as they walk casually before a massive dam.

 

The plot really kicks in when we return the present and Vincent’s plan seems to be going well. Then, a week before the launch, an Executive at Gattaca is brutally murdered in his Office. The Police prowl the building for suspects. The already onerous Security Checks become even harder for Vincent to cheat. Vincent is at risk of losing his dream. Worse, Vincent is at risk of being falsely accused of murder. There’s also amusingly creepy Dr. Lamar (Xander Berkeley) who seems to have inappropriate sexual interests in Vincent and also is in charge of Vincent’s Genetic ID Tests. Actually, Lamar’s motives are not that at all, when finally revealed … well … it’s a pretty good scene.

 

Above-mentioned Irene is the Love-Interest (in the Real-World Thurman and Hawker would soon marry). She’s an unusually accomplished Faith Birth who just hit the Glass Ceiling. She heart-broken that presumed-Valid Jerome is so obviously superior to her. She’s caught between surrendering to him and plotting against him.

 

Niccoli’s Dystopia has deep roots in SF, going back before Genetics had the benefit of having the work “Gene” (it was coined by Danish Botanist Wilhelm Johannsen in 1909 and he wasn’t the first Scientist working in the field). H.G. Wells’ novel “The Island of Doctor Moreau” (1896) had to fall back on vivisection to off something similar to Genetic Engineering. Then J. B. S. Haldane wrote a prophetic essay, “Daedalus, or Science and the Future” (1924), making it far clearer what the coming Science was going to look like. Among the most important works influenced by that essay was Aldous Huxley’s novel “Brave New World” (1936), which creates a rigorous Future Cast-system through pre-natal manipulations, but not full-blown Genetic Engineering as we know it now. “Brave New World” would become among the most influential SF novels every written and directly adapted for TV three times (1980, 1998, 2009). The 1998 adaptation seems to have strongly influenced this film, it avoided most FX or Futuristic-looking props, just embracing rich Production Values and the ultra-Modern furnishings we already have around us. It gave us the impression of a so-Near-Future, we expected it to come true shortly after the next Election-Cycle.

 

So it is with this film. Not for nothing, Art Directors Jan Roelfs and Nancy Nye were nominated for an Oscar and Production Designers Roelfs (again), Sarah Knowles and Natalie Richards were nominated for an Art Directors Guide Award. Cinematographer Slawomir Idziak also did excellent work, relying on subtle tones (this is a Corporate Environment after all), but making contrasts between the outside world which glows softly, while making the interior offices of Gattaca harsh and grey.

 

Also, by keeping closer-than-usual to available Science, it proved shockingly anticipatory, and with every new advance in the Real-World, the film benefited from renewed interest. The Producers did get lucky when Cloned Sheep Dolly hit made international news just the year before (1996), while the film was in production. More was coming: A monkey was born with jellyfish DNA in 2001, rabbits with jellyfish DNA and glowed in the dark in 2013. Goats that lactate spider silk in 2015. That same year, Bioengineered mice ran mazes faster the (ahem) “Faith-Births,” though there were negative side-effects. As for DTC, the company 23andMe obtained a patent in 2010 covering a process with the stated goal of allowing people to choose a sperm or egg provider based on probabilities of having a child with desired “height, eye color, gender, personality characteristics and risk of developing certain types of cancer.” Because of a combination of Public backlash and the fact that the Science was not advanced enough to deliver on these promises, 23andMe has since promised not to pursue this project.

 

Don’t expect 23andMe’s decision to stand long. As Critic Roger Ebert observed, “What is genetic engineering, after all, but preemptive plastic surgery? Make the child perfect in the test tube, and save money later.”

 

In a 2013 article in “Scientific American” the film was referred to:

 

“The Freemans are characters in the science fiction film ‘Gattaca,’ which explores liberal eugenics as an unintended consequence of certain technologies meant to assist human reproduction. Although Antonio and Marie do not exist outside the movie’s imaginary universe, their real-life counterparts could be walking among us sooner than we think — and, in a sense, they already are.”

 

Princeton Biologist Lee M. Silver has long warned of a Future where the "GenRich" become a Ruling Class Lording over "Naturals." Of this film, Silver wrote, “‘Gattaca’ is a film that all geneticists should see if for no other reason than to understand the perception of our trade held by so many of the public-at-large.”

 

But for every Silver there’s a Researcher, Futurist, maybe even a Bioethicist, who dream of “Transhumanism" achieving "Homo Perfectus," or a "Singularity," which concerns AI, not Engineered Humans, so we really get left out. And this is without mentioning the Ideological Libertarians who don’t want restrictions on Entrepreneurial Capitalism.

 

(I should note here that at least Prominent Libertarian, Senator Rand Paul, does view this Future as Hell, and referred to the film on the Senate Floor; but he was arguing against women’s Abortion Rights, not DTC Genetics, so the argument didn’t completely make sense.)

 

I should say, these threats aren’t being ignored, but there is some lack of clarity over what to do about it. Every (or maybe nearly every) Nation on the World have at least some Laws and/Polices regulating Bioengineering, but they’re a hodge-podge. More than three dozen have forbidden DTC Bioengineering and Cloning of Humans, but not the USA.

 

The film is wiser than the World. Legitimate Science has long abandoned the Nature-v-Nurture argument, recognizing that it’s actually Nature-through-Nurture (sometimes Science back-slides, like the appalling Social arguments presented in the best-selling Popular Science book, “The Bell Curve” (1994)) but we, collectively, are still evidence-resistant, and much of our Society refuses to embrace the obvious reality. This film is about that and makes its point powerfully. It spends no time with the Under Classes except Vincent, who, himself, spends no time with the other members of the Under Classes. Instead, it presents the Upper Classes as trapped in presumptions of presumed destiny.

 

The real Jerome is committed to Vincent and there’s a suspenseful scene where he has to pretend to be his double, requiring to climb stairs even though he can’t walk to answer the doorbell and then somehow pretend not to be a cripple while being interrogated. But really, Jerome’s suicidal.

 

And then there’s Aton Jr. (as an adult played by Loren Dean), who decided to deny what his Genetic Engineering expected of him and become a Police Detective (guess who’s investigating the Homicide at the center of this plot?). Gattaca’s Director Josef (Gore Vidal) clearly thinks Public Service is a waste of such a fine, young, man, and offers him a job. There is some nobility in Anton’s embrace of Service even though he’s bred for Success, but there’s also an impression that he’s in an environment where his Faith-Birth Coworkers must cow-tow to him, not in one where he must daily compete with other Valids.

 

And Vincent paid a high price too. In the end, he succeeds in defying all expectations but he almost never seems happy in the film, only driven, like Real-World Sports’ Cheat Lance Armstrong was driven. He only seems relaxed when with Irene, and his success requires him to leave Irene behind.

 

This is a World of obviously cruel exclusions, but more subtly cruel consequences for success. Isn’t that the heart of Dystopia? We’re told it’s good, but that’s actually a lie. In this Dystopia, even the one who Rebels is ultimately part of the lie.

 

Trailer:

GATTACA [1997] – Official Trailer (HD) | Now on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and Digital - YouTube