Monkey Diaries Archive

I caught Solaris last night with ML. What did I think of Steven Soderbergh's latest film? Well, in a nutshell, I liked the film until the last 10 minutes. What could have ended up being a great movie, ripe with the kind of opportunity for conjecture that Blade Runner spawned (still spawns), falls miserably short by extending the movie for those ten minutes. Soderbergh force feeds anyone willing to sit through this slow paced, thinking man's sci-fi thriller all the answers rather than letting his audience develop their own opinion. First let me preface this review with the fact that I'm a fan of Soderbergh as well as George Clooney. The fact that so much attention has been recently paid to the three shots of George Clooney's ass probably was responsible for the predominantly female audience at last nights show. As well as the countless numbers of men who whooped whenever they showed the aforementioned star's buttocks. This is after all, San Francisco. The film begins with Chris Kelvin (Clooney) sitting on a bed, waking up from what appears to have been a troubled sleep. A voice over of a woman asking "Do you still love me?" plays over the scene offering the viewer some idea of something being out of balance. As the opening scenes unfold, we learn that Kelvin is a psychologist who is seemingly more depressed than some of the animated clients he works with. In these opening scenes, Kelvin's voice is monotone, indifferent, like the life has been sucked out of him. The colors in his world are all muted, cold, just as if they mirrored what Kelvin's existence has become. Enter some mysterious corporate reps that ask him to fly to a space station in orbit around a planet called Solaris. The reason? The have lost contact with the crew and attempts to send in a security force to deal with the problem have failed. They show Kelvin a video created by his best friend who is on the orbiting station requesting that he immediately make the trip to help him sort out the mystery surrounding the events that are unfolding. He takes on the challenge and arrives on the space station to discover a cold, brightly lit, but uninviting environment. The solving the mystery takes on even more urgency when Kelvin discovers blood throughout the space station, leading him to discover the bodies of the all but three of the crew members in a lab freezer. The real meat of the film begins here. Kelvin meets the two remaining crewmembers, Snow (played with manic intensity by Jeremy Davies) and Gordon (played by stage actress, Viola Davis), each who have locked themselves away in their quarters. The surviving crewmembers have a different way of dealing with the incidents that are happening around them. Only one thing remains certain… something truly amazing is happening and it is preventing each of them from leaving the ship. After chasing after a child, Kelvin asks Snow to tell him what’s going on since the child belonged to one of the crewmembers that we learn commits suicide. Snow tells Kelvin that the child was essentially the reason for the crewmembers suicide. Then Snow warns Kelvin that he shouldn’t sleep unless he locks the door to his quarters. Taking this to heart, uneasy about the things he has discovered thus far, Kelvin locks the airlock to his quarters and quickly falls asleep. Of course, as with all the best-laid plans of mice and men, locking the doors does little to prevent the ensuing experiences. As Kelvin dreams of his wife, Rheya (played by the beautiful Natascha McElhone), we witness the beginnings of their tumultuous relationship but not much in the way of why she is MIA from his life. When he is suddenly awakened by a woman’s gentle touch, that’s when we get our first clue into exactly what’s going on. Somehow, Kelvin’s wife materializes suddenly into his locked quarters on a ship far from Earth. Surprise gives way to something else and Kelvin quickly makes that particular manifestation disappear. Kelvin quickly rounds up the two remaining crewmembers and interviews them. He discovers what we already suspect: Solaris is somehow generating matter, sending visitors onto the space station to interact with the crew, giving form to a person’s most important desire. The moral and political ramifications are discussed. Are they real? Are they dangerous? Can they die? Do they feel? As Kelvin tries to sort out the mystery, Snow tells him that his “visitor” was a dead relative. The audience, should at this point, realize that Kelvin’s wife is also dead, presumably by something other than naturally causes. The when Kelvin falls asleep again, we get more information on what happened during his relationship with his wife as well as what might have become of her. When he awakes his dead wife once again visits him only this time he doesn't get rid of her but welcomes her into his life fully. Is it cheating if you have sex with a manifestation of your dead wife? Apparently that question wasn't on Kelvin's mind since he wholeheartedly participates in a conjugal visitor... Kelvin eventually gets to the bottom of the mystery but not before a few surprises arise. SPOILER: Most notably, one of the remaining crew members is actually a "visitor" having dispatched the real one upon arriving on the space station. That’s where I’ll leave it for people to watch the film and develop their own opinions about things. Suffice it to say, had they ended the film ten minutes before the actual end, it would have truly been a good film. But since Soderbergh seems to have bowed to studio pressure by hand-feeding the answers to the audience, it’s just an interesting attempt at developing a Sci-fi story that isn’t dependent on loads of special effects. For what it’s worth, Solaris would be a great way to spend a quiet evening at home but not worth the price of admission in a movie theater.