GATTACA micro-review

[prog]

Rented it because I recall hearing that it was well received at a previous SF marathon (before I started attending it).

Hated it.

I was ready to like it (except for the totally extraneous bite-me love story). I appreciated how the setting was not a generic Orwellian dystopia, with the depiction of an honestly ambitious and successful space program keeping things nicely ambiguous. Then the ending made me retroactively hate the entire film that came before.

I thought, right up until the end, that the movie was going to defy my expectations (and Hollywood formula) by allowing the hero's male hetero buddy to survive the picture. As we all know, suspense-movie templates often demand that male hetero buddies pay for the hero's friendship with their lives. I was actually surprised when he managed to live through the police interview at his home, sure that he'd get shot or fall down the stairs or drink some bad milk or find some way to sacrifice himself to protect the hero's identity.

So then the movie's coming to a close and oh shit we forgot to kill the MHB! Ah, no worries, we'll just have him commit suicide for absolutely no reason. Also in the most excruciating way possible because it's more symbolic that way and we can do this cool parallel shot with the rocket boosters firing.

This is the first time in memory I have shut off a movie in disgust within (what I assume to be) seconds of the closing credits, so I didn't even get the grim satisfaction of feeling like I walked out on it.

Comments

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

I saw GATTACA a while back. I remember liking it but something in the ending disappointed me. You may have hit upon it.

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

Huh. I didn't have that reaction at all. I thought Jude Law's death fit the point of the movie, which was to criticize a society in which everything is genetically determined. Here's this guy who genetically is destined for success - but genes can't keep him from paralyzing half his body. The society has no way to deal with disabilities, because everyone who matters is effectively perfect. So he's screwed. The movie could have had him continue to lurk in his depressing lonely house, effect some sort of magical recovery or rebellion, or kill himself. The only result I wouldn't have been okay with is the middle option.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's how we meet him at the start of the film, but that's before he becomes friends with Hawke (and arguably whats-her-face too). At the end, he seems to have more than what he had at the beginning, but decides then that it's the right time to kill himself. Huh?!

And anyway, WTF: there aren't any career choices left that would welcome a genius with limited mobility? Can he not go into business for himself? Do all the jobs left involve jogging, climbing ladders and/or kung-fu? Even if that is the case we are given no background to suggest that suicide is an acceptable path in this society. There is all sorts of precedent in dystopian SF of suicide-embracing cultures that the film had the opportunity to hint at, and it never took them. So, the event really came out of nowhere for me.

Furthermore, Hawke expressed no curiosity at where Law was going, apparently permanently, even though they had a conversation about it earlier. The whole setup was forced and phoney, and in a way it invalidated the friendship that was depicted through the rest of the movie (which was something I actually liked).

No, to me, it seemed like a totally irrational action. I mean, Law may as well have revealed he was an alien, or Ethan Hawke's father's ghost, or something. It didn't make any sense, but it did fit a Hollywood formula, and that torqued me sideways.

[mrmorse.livejournal.com]

I found the whole movie basically uninteresting. The driving force is supposed to be whether Ethan Hawke can buck the system, but really, I didn't care if he succeeded or not. The movie probably gets points in some circles for being sci-fi and not about laser guns, but I still don't think it's a good movie.

I also had an issue with a plot point at the end of the movie. It's been long enough that I don't know if it happens before or after you turned it off, but it depends on the handedness of the character, and it rang totally false to me. I'm right handed but there is a significant number of tasks that I do preferentially with my left hand. That possibility is apparently completely foreign to the characters in the movie, and hanging a plot point on that fact blew the movie's credibility for me.

[prog.livejournal.com]

I'm curious why the SF marathon people liked it. It was apparently the low-budget, high-concept sleeper one year, and in my attendance history these have always been wonderful surprises (like Primer and Happy Accidents). The concept was winning, but for me the execution got it only half right and just lost me by the end.

I know what you're talking about with the handedness. That particular scene was also a disaster for me, but for an entirely different reason... that doctor's only dialogue up until that point involved soliloquizing about Ethan Hawke's beautiful penis, so his participation in the ending was not so much heartwarming as creepy.