Dear Julia,

I certainly can see why Gattaca was chosen for Film Friday event; it checks a lot of good sci-fi dystopia boxes and it’s well made. That said as much as I wanted to enjoy the film, it kept rubbing me the wrong way in small ways. Ethan Hawke is a very particular actor to me–he’s just so specific– and seeing him in a thriller like this one felt jarring. I also thought that generally the film was very melodramatic at points. Example: the incredibly homoerotic swimming race between Ethan Hawke and his brother. I get what they were going for there and I thought it was interesting, but the cinematography and the score and the acting all together distracted–not intensified–the drama. I also thought that the film had some questionable politics about disability. I understand Jude Law’s character’s arc, but it just felt like bad posturing to have the one paraplegic character decide that life was not living due to his disability. For comparison–I think Forrest Gump does an excellent job with the character of Lieutenant Dan. His disability is one aspect of who he is, and his strengths and weaknesses as a person exist both within and without the context of his disability. Jude Law’s character on the other hand seemed like a perfectly capable and interesting person–he spends over a year helping Ethan Hawke assume his identity only to kill himself when he can’t exist to benefit someone without a disability. Beyond that though the entire premise of the movie bugged me. If doctors could assess you through your genes as depicted in the film, wouldn’t Ethan Hawke be a prime candidate for working at the company he sneaks into? The film’s message is that Ethan Hawke’s drive and passion and intelligence are more important than his limitations, but wouldn’t the test at his birth show all those qualities as well? That’s how things worked for Uma Thurman–who also had a heart condition. Furthermore, regardless of Ethan Hawke’s intelligence and wherewithal, I think that a high probability of having heart problems is a perfectly valid reason to prevent someone from going on a perilous space mission. It’s amazing Ethan Hawke could get a spot on the mission despite the adversity he faced, but by being there he could be endangering the lives of his crew and the success of the mission. Even today there are certain physical requirements astronauts need to meet–surely a heart condition such as Ethan Hawke’s would have precluded him even now. Oh well, despite my criticisms I still think the film was worth watching and thought provoking.

Love,

Robert