Soderbergh does Space (Solaris [2002] (DVD))

Member Name: JonathanS

Product:	Solaris [2002] (DVD)
Date:	25/03/03 (72 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks great, Gives you something to think about

Disadvantages: Bland performence from McElhone, flaws in how the plot plays out

Remakes are a tricky business, especially when the original is considered as something of a classic. In the case of Solaris, writer/director Steven Soderbergh can claim to have gone back to the original novel by Stanislaw Lem, rather than just remaking the Tarkovsky film, and no doubt an English language version with a big name star like George Clooney will bring a far bigger audience than the original, so it has a chance of being a worthwhile remake.

Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) is a psychologist living on earth at some point in the future. He receives a call from a friend on a research ship, asking for his help but not giving any real reason why. He journeys out to the ship, which is in orbit around the strange planet Solaris, to find his friend dead and only two other crew members alive. Snow (Jeremy Davies) is talkative but jittery, and tries to explain to Chris what's going on but is obviously quite disturbed and doesn't make much sense. Helen (Viola Davies) on the other hand seems rational but won't even leave her room. Chris gets some idea of what's going on when he wakes up and finds his wife Rheya (Natascha McElhone) next to him, after he'd been dreaming of her. His wife who died after committing suicide some years ago. Over the course of the film Chris struggles to understand what's happening to him, whilst coming to terms with his own past and relationship with Rheya.

Solaris is a long way from what the Hollywood audience thinks of as being science fiction. Yes, there are a handful of special effects shots of ships in space and the planet they're orbitting, but the core of this film is very much the people and their interactions, concerned far more with conversations than action. As such, the performances are key to the success of the film, George Clooney's especially. He shows that he is entirely capable of being more than an action film lead, putting in a charismatic leading performance. Jeremy Davies
is effective as the far from sane Snow, though he does sometimes veer a little too close to comfort to Brad Pitt's character in 12 Monkeys. The weakest link in the cast is Natascha McElhone. She evidently has the right look for the part, but her character seems bland and uninteresting and doesn't really manage to convey the extreme emotions of the part.

There is definitely a place for intelligent science fiction films, and the many visual homages to 2001 show where the intentions of Soderbergh lie. Like the earlier Space Odyssey this is a deliberate and careful film which is trying to make the audience think. There is even a sequence that could be likened to the famous 'stargate' part of Kubrick's masterpiece, though the journey in this case is more of an emotional one than physical. It fails though to have the same kind of an impact, due in large part to some flaws in how the plot plays out. For a film so based on character, Chris' actions seem inconsistent, the sudden switch from how he deals with his first visitation to his reaction to the second doesn't seem to make any sense. There is also a painful moment of technobabble that wouldn't seem out of place in an episode of Star Trek, providing a too easy solution without ever really explaining anything, and so taking away from the atmosphere of the film. In a film that's trying so hard to be intelligent and thought about, flaws like this are fatal, and make this a disappointing film.

I have neither seen the original Tarkovsky film or read the book, so I cannot judge whether the problems I had with Solaris are with the source material or the adaptation. Steven Soderbergh has made an interesting film that tackles difficult issues of relationships and memory, but a film with flaws that prevent it from being anything more than just interesting.

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