Solaris
A psychologist is asked to investigate what happened to an expedition aboard the space station Prometheus and becomes entrapped in the unique planet's mysteries.
Story
Psychologist Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) is asked to investigate the strange behavior of a small group of scientists aboard a space station orbiting the planet Solaris. The expedition has stopped all communication with Earth and mission captain Gibarian (Ulrich Tukur) has committed suicide. Once on board the space station, Kelvin discovers two surviving crewmembers who are suffering from extreme stress and paranoia brought on by studying the planetary body. He learns that Solaris can create physical personifications, known as ''visitors,'' which are drawn from the crew's subconscious memories. For Kelvin, a ''visitor'' comes in the form of his wife Rheya (Natascha McElhone), who committed suicide years earlier. Soon enough, he finds himself in the same nutty predicament as the crew and becomes fixated on the possibility he can change the events that lead to Rheya's death. The film, based on Stanislaw Lem's 1961 novel of the same name, is not so much a sci-fi pic as it is a futuristic romance. It's a slow-building story that raises many questions without ever answering them, including the planet's motives.
Acting
While Clooney delivers a soulful performance as the worrisome Chris Kelvin, it might have been more interesting to establish his character without spelling out his past. Kelvin's wife Rheya is supposed to be a character so dark that flowers practically die when she walks into a room. While McElhone's portrayal of Rheya is not bad, her morbidity comes more from the character's back story than the actress's performance; Rheya is suicidal and has an abortion, hence she is a sinister being. Viola Davis plays Helen Gordon, one of the two surviving crewmembers on the space station. Good performance, but her character is too inconsistent. At the start of the film, for example, she is holed up in her quarters and refuses to come out. In the next scene, however, she divulges everything she knows to Kelvin in a very logical and calm manner. What happened to the paranoia, the extreme stress? Jeremy Davies is the second crewmember, Snow (perhaps aptly named, because he seems almost as though he's actually on coke). Doing his best Crispin Glover, Davies is the most irritating thing about the movie.
Direction
Solaris was first adapted as a feature film by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972 in a much longer and truer version of the book. Director/screenwriter Steven Soderbergh decided to delve deeper into Kelvin's relationship with his wife Rheya than necessary. Not a sci-fi director at heart, Soderbergh whitewashes many of the book's technical details, such as what constellation the space station is orbiting or anything pertinent about Solaris itself. He chooses instead to focus on Kelvin's troubled relationship with Rheya, which is established through sappy flashbacks. But what goes on between the couple on the space station is much more compelling than their overly sentimentalized past. Because the new Rheya is created from Kelvin's mind, her own memories are actually his; if he remembers they met on a train, for example, so will she. Eventually, she begins to question her own existence and demands answers from Kelvin that he cannot provide. Soderbergh examines religious, philosophical and spiritual issues in a not-so-subtle manner, but leaves the film open to interpretation. Completely devoid of splashy special effects, Soderbergh's Solaris is beautifully shot with a minimalist effect.
Bottom Line
Solaris is a meditative drama wrapped in a sci-fi setting with a love story nestled at the core. This film will turn off technophiles but is interesting enough in concept and storytelling.