Under The Radar: Gattaca

We here at The Discriminating Fangirl know it’s hard to keep up with all the movies, TV, books, comics, video games, podcasts and other media being released every week, let alone trying to find the hidden gems of media past. That’s why we’re starting a new feature: Under the Radar, for those sadly overlooked nuggets of joy that either never got the attention they deserved when they were released or need more exposure now.

For our first installment, an underrated film that tanked at the box office but really has a lot going for it: Gattaca. It has everything that should have made it a successful film, though not a blockbuster – an engaging and thought-provoking script, a stellar cast and stylish visuals. Gattaca received generally positive reviews from critics, but the film only took $12.5 million in domestic ticket sales on the back of a $36 million budget.

Gattaca takes place in the not too distant future where genetics has been refined to the point where a set of parents who could afford it could have their child genetically engineered to be as close to perfect as possible, weeding out any defects and selecting preferred characteristics. Vincent Freeman is not one of those children. He was born a “faith birth”, conceived the old-fashioned way. Moments old, he was genetically typed and found that he had a 97% chance of dying young from a heart defect. Realizing their mistake, Vincent’s parents choose to engineer their next child, who is taller than Vincent, stronger, genetically superior in every way Vincent is not.

As he matures, Vincent spends his time studying science, wanting to be an astronaut. But he is denied because of his inferior DNA and theoretically bum ticker. He is an In-Valid, one of the emerging underclass who are not genetically gifted and therefore relegated to menial tasks like janitorial work. But Vincent will not let his lack of the right genes stop him. He finds a way to become a “Borrowed Ladder”, an In-Valid posing as Valid, to gain entry to the Gattaca Corporation, which sends astronauts on long-term, deep space missions. But once he’s in, he has to work hard every day to maintain the ruse in the face of constant genetic verification designed to winnow society’s wheat from its chaff.

In addition to the movie’s stars Ethan Hawke, Jude Law (in his first Hollywood role) and Uma Thurman, the supporting cast is filled with stars and future stars like Ernest Borgnine, Alan Arkin and Tony Shaloub. There’s also a blink-and-you’ll-miss-her appearance by Maya Rudolph, the future SNL alumna. Gore Vidal makes a rare acting appearance as the director of the Gattaca Corporation and there are several actors SF fans will know from the likes of ST:TNG and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. Amazing!

The movie itself looks very stylish and futuristic, despite most buildings and cars featured being several decades old. I guess Andrew Niccol relied on futuristic-looking items from the 50s and 60s still looking futuristic in 1997. I personally thought the cars looked equal parts futuristic and retro, to give them a timeless vibe. The buildings, on the other hand, I felt looked like blocky monstrosities in general. IMDB reliably informs me that these buildings are Brutalist architecture. They don’t do anything for me personally, but they do give an air of the coldly futuristic.

In my opinion, Gattaca is a woefully overlooked sci-fi gem. The themes about eugenics should make one wonder about the morality of tampering with DNA. I’m no Luddite, but it’s a slippery slope from screening for a few genetic defects or choosing the sex of a baby (which we can do now) to screening out things like near-sightedness, dyslexia and tendencies towards depression, potentially creating a genetic divide of “haves” and “have nots”. One of the deleted scenes that appears on the DVD shows several famous people who might not have been born had Gattaca’s kind of genetic screening been around before their births: Abraham Lincoln (who possibly had Marfan’s Syndrome), JFK (Addison’s Disease), Albert Einstein (dyslexia) and Emily Dickinson (manic depression), among others. That Vincent is able to achieve all that he does despite his genetic disadvantages shows that there is more to every underdog than what’s in his genes. Gattaca makes the viewer think critically about where s/he stands on eugenics and how that science can be misused and that, after all, is what the best science fiction does.

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