Review of "Gattaca"

Meaghan Kennedy
Period 5
Lodge



Though considered a 90s classic, Gattaca is one of the best movie of the 90s. The premise behind the movie, the main characters in the movie, and the premise of the movie make Gattaca a great movie to watch and discuss with others.

The movie Gattaca is set in a world where "designer babies" are the norm. The few people that are conceived naturally are called "invalids", for they do not have the perfect, or practically perfect, DNA of the designer adults. The main character, Vincent is an invalid who always wanted to go into space. However, Vincent's heart condition made it impossible for him to attain that goal, so for many years he was a laborer at various sites, included cleaning the building at Gattaca, the headquarters of the space program. Desperate to reach his goal, he enlists the help of a man who pairs invalids with valids who had bad luck. Vincent meets Jerome, who was brilliant and an amazing swimmer, and a genetic profile worthy of getting into Gattaca. Taking Jerome's name, blood samples, and urine samples, Vincent in effect becomes Jerome. Vincent gets into Gattaca, and at the start of the story he is shown to be preparing for a mission to Titan, Saturn's thirteenth moon (IMDb). All goes according to plan until his mission director is killed. The police a piece of his (invalid) hair within Gattaca, making the police think that it is HIM who has killed the mission director. Vincent must find a way to not be pegged as an invalid in order to not be found as a murderer and to go into space, a mission he has dreamed about since a child.

On the website "Rustylime", one criteria for a good movie is a good plot. In the author's eyes, the criteria is that the plot "is plausible and easy to follow". For example, it would make sense that the investigators would choose an invalid as the suspect in the murder of the mission director. This is due to the fact that invalids were more prone to have depression, or other problems that valids could easily get rid of before they were born. Since genetics caused work discrimination for invalids, it is entirely plausible that there was stereotypes for invalids as well, since in society there are stereotypes for all the races, religions, and even genders. Also, in the movie, the investigators are told that the invalid (Vincent) once worked at Gattaca, so a motive could've been that the invalid had a tiff with the mission director, another plausible idea. Vincent basically narrates his whole life story in the first twenty minutes of the movie, making it easy to follow why Vincent wanted to go to Gattaca, how he got there, and the plot from there was easy to follow. Also, "screenwriting.info" added that a good story must conflict, or in the words of the website, "Someone wants something and people and things keep getting in the way of them achieving the goal". This story is a perfect example of this. Vincent wants to be sent up into space, but obstacles do get in his way. People who get in his way include his father, who tells him that the closest he will get to the inside of a spaceship is to clean, and his brother Anton, who always reminded Vincent of how superior he was to Vincent, and how he could get into the space program (while Vincent couldn't). The other obstacle was Vincent's DNA, which showed that he had a heart problem in particular. After all, no person in that world would hire a person who was predestined to die at the age of thirty. Therefore, watching Vincent overcome those obstacles to watch Vincent go to Titan at the end of the movie was an amazing movie moment, for he defied the odds.

The website "Comic book movie.com" describes an essential part of the movie as good acting. Their criteria for good acting is acting that isn't acting; that is, the actor/actress doesn't have to try to display the emotion in the movie; the actor acts in the movie as though they were the character, not merely acting the part of the character. The best example of this kind of character is Jerome, played by Jude Law. For example, about twenty-nine minutes into the movie, Jerome talks about winning a silver medal, when his genetics should've let him become a gold medalist. The pain, heartbreak, and the self-loathing in his eyes is very evident. You could see that he more than upset that he didn't get first place; he was so competitive that it was unbelievable to him that he did not win the top place. Throughout the movie, his sarcasm, anger, and less-than-caring attitude was so flawless, that it was though he was not acting at all; it was an excellent way to see into the lives of the valids, and the stress/competition that they have to go through each day. As an invalid, Ethan Hawke's portrayal as Vincent was also convincing, for you could see how much he wanted to go up into space. The annoyance in his face as his parents told him that he could not become an astronaut was convincing. He looked as though it was just another lecture for him, by the way he was half-ignoring his parents. This is a natural reaction when someone tells you that you cannot acheive something. These natural reactions were what made the acting convincing, for they were in fact natural emotions, or as a definition, emotions that most people would show if they were placed in the same situation. Overall, the cast was flawless, for they portayed serious characters, without one corny line. You could literally feel as though you could be in their world.


The aspect of realism is what truly makes this movie shine. Realism, in a sci-fi movie at least, is the ability to have a realistic premise that could be related to everyday life. The premise of the movie is realistic in the sense that genetics, and designer babies in particular, have been very newsworthy in the past ten years. For example, the human genome project, the project that mapped an entire human genome sequence, was completed in 2003, six years after this movie came out. The idea of designer babies has also been a controversial issue in society lately. In February of 2009, a Los Angeles fertility clinic had a program to let future parents choose the hair color and the eye color of their child (Wired Science). Though this program was shut down, it still causes debates between those who "put faith in God" and those who "want the best for their children". Some people believe that the premise of genetic discrimination cannot happen. One review on IMBd writes "It parallels genetic disposition and potential with discrimination against minority groups in the past, and it fails. I'd like to think, now in the 21st century, as an individualistic society, we reward those who succeed no matter who they were, are and whence they come and we won't step back to discrimination in future despite knowing their potentials beforehand, simply because that is ridiculous." My first response to this criticism is that discrimination didn't go away with the civil rights movement or the women's rights movement. Even though society has gotten better over the years, racial slurs are still being uttered, the pay of women is still lower then men, and swastikas are still seen. As advanced as society can get, discrimination will still exist, and in the case of the movie, the geneticists could get rid of diseases, not personality problems. An example of this is Anton; his haughty attitude towards Vincent was very evident in the movie. Another human flaw that couldn't have been gotten rid of was competitiveness, which brings me to my second point. It may be somewhat true that we reward those who succeed. However, the key word is "succeed". In our society, we award those who are the strongest, smartest, most beautiful, etc. College in particular is a battlefield of competition; those with a 2.5 GPA and no athletic abilities will not be favored to be admitted into college. The kids with superb athletic skills, GPAs, or SAT scores will likely get the best financial aid. It is possible that those kids with 2.5 GPAs could excel at college, so why do they not get accepted to the top colleges or receive the best financial aid? The answer to that question lies in the fact that the kids' abilities were already predetermined. Colleges conclude through different kinds of tests whether or not a kid would be successful at a particular college. The same concept is applied in the movie Gattaca; Vincent was determined to not perform jobs as well as other candidates, due to his heart condition. He wasn't the healthiest, so he didn't get rewarded with a job. It didn't matter how smart he was; as was mentioned above, no company would want to hire a man who could die at the age of thirty. There are candidates who could outlive him, and if he died, he would need to be replaced. Not hiring Vincent would save companies money from not having to hire new recruits and training them. It the world of Gattaca, it is not discrimination; it is just buisness. Besides, it was mentioned that anti-genetic discrimination laws existed; it was just that the laws were ignored, like some laws of today are. It is no wonder that Gattaca was set in the "not-so-distant-future", for the science of their world is becoming more well known today.

Though Gattaca has been largely ignored as a classic movie, it deserves to be watched by every person in the world. If the strength of the cast and the plot of the movie is not enough for viewers, then the premise of designer babies should at least be thought about. It may just help people see the concept from the viewpoint of an "invalid" like Vincent, and it would remind viewers that even the not-so-perfect have the potential to succeed. I would recommend this movie to all viewers age thirteen and up, for the rating is PG-13, but I hope that this movie is played to high school teenagers in particular. As part of the teenage generation, I can say that we will be dealing with these ethical issues as adults. It may be up to my generation to decide whether or not we will allow parents to design their children. This movie could be a decision maker; let's hope that decision for the future will be wise.

Cited list
Movie summary: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/fullcredits#cast
What makes a good plot info: http://www.rustylime.com/show_article.php?id=1447
What makes a good actor info: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/geekboymovienews/news/?a=11893

What makes a good story info: http://www.screenwriting.info/01.php
Info on the human genome project: http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/home.shtml
Article about designer babies: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/designerdebate/