Solaris

I always find it interesting to approach a movie that has people so polarized - in this case "it was sooooo slow" vs. "uplifting and incredible." That seems to go for the critics as well. My reaction was neither.

I am predisposed to like this kind of science fiction - the low key and wonderful "Gattaca" comes to mind. I found the story very intriguing and atmospheric and it held my interest - at the same time I felt something was missing and it just wasn't as rich, complex and good as it should have been.

I am not sure why, I think the key for me is that I was not able to really get emotionally involved with the love story - and this is first and foremost a love story. I have trouble with most love stories, due to my own particular biases, so there has to be a lot there to really identify with it. I think the problem here was the casting and acting - it could have been a lot better. The woman playing Gordon was rather flat as well.

Also the script was a little too obvious.

All in all, an interesting film that I am glad I saw, but I can't really get worked up about it.

While Soderbergh's Solaris may well be a work of art in its own right, I certainly pity those who haven't read the book or at least seen Tarkovsky's 1972 original adaptation, which is a lot more faithful to Lem's novel in its scope, if not in its vision. Soderbergh has managed to leave out just about everything that could justify the title (as Lem himself put it, if he had set out to write a book about space romance, he would have called it Love in Outer Space, not Solaris). So if you want to know the story, go and read the novel.

That said, I enjoyed Jeremy Davis as Snow, and the score is very good.

There are a number of good things about this movie, but ultimately it felt to me like a lost opportunity. It raised provocative psychological issues but never carried me away or led me to anything like an epiphany. In the latter half, I was in fact a bit bored. It certainly isn't enthralling like Tarkovsky's version. Rheya's character is better developed, particularly her own psychological trauma in being a "creation" (Tarkovsky's Rheya was something of a naif in comparison). But what I missed from Tarkovsky's version is the sense of humor (this one is stiflingly earnest) and the evocative and poignant use of Bach chorales in the soundtrack. The soundtrack to this one is intriguing (a la Brian Eno, Ligeti, and Thomas Newman's scores for The Player and American Beauty), but I eventually found myself desperately longing for a cadence. Lacking the feeling of redemption communicated musically in Tarkovsky's version, this one had to rely on ham-handed statements of fact. And finally, I can't help remarking that neither Tarkovsky nor Soderbergh really convey the element of shame and sexual deviance that played such an important part in Lem's original. Both place the emphasis instead on guilt, which isn't quite the same thing, is it?

Since I had just read Lem's novel Solaris and had in the past seen the 1972 Russian movie Solyaris, I was interested in seeing the new Solaris. Someone not familiar with the story may well be baffled by the movie. Those who have read the book will recognize the plot up to close to the end, where the movie veers off in its own attempt for a resolution that Lem did not seem to think necessary to provide in the novel.

I was disappointed that the movie had almost nothing to say or show about the sentient ocean of Solaris and humanity's failure to comprehend it. The book went into great detail in describing the fantastic phenomena of the ocean and the various failed theories to explain them. In fact I think that was the central theme of the book which is almost completely lost in the movie.

Story Something is wrong on the space station orbiting the mysterious planet Solaris, so Chris Kelvin (Clooney) goes there, all alone, to find out what's going on and to persuade the crew to come home. Turns out, when one is near Solaris, one tends to see dead people--or duplicates thereof. In Kelvin's case, this would be a doppelganger of his deceased wife, Rheya (McElhone), which seems to have Rheya's personality traits and memories.

I had heard that Solaris was excruciatingly slow and, consequently, unbearably boring, but I didn't quite agree. I understood that many shots were included or extended to set the mood, and to illustrate thought and memory, and it was all visually interesting. I could see, for example, where Soderbergh showed his love for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey with lingering shots of Clooney in an astronaut's helmet, patterns of light reflected on its glass. However I would have traded the extra hour of atmospherics for a deeper exploration of the intriguing questions the premise raised. When we say we love someone, are we saying we love the sum of the person's characteristics? Were we to lose our loved one, would a twin with the same likes, dislikes, and quirks be a suitable replacement? Would you want to live on in the memories of your friends and family or, as Woody Allen prefers, to live on in your apartment? This film seems less interested in delving into these mysteries than it is in portraying grief and subjective memory. Valid objectives, but Solaris left me wanting to see an episode of the similarly themed Caprica (of which I've only seen the pilot movie).

Why you should see it You never got over that crush you developed on Clooney during his tenure on ER. You're in the mood for a visual poem of love and loss. You enjoy any movie set in outer space. You're the founder of Jeremy Davies/Dr. Faraday Fan Club.

Why you should avoid it Star Trek: The Next Generation was set in outer space too. Pick an episode and it will lead you through a debate of life's big questions, in half the time.

--from my review at www.1man365movies.com