Solaris Reviews

It is the near future and Clooney plays a pychologist named Chris Kelvin. One day he receives a disturbing message from a friend that he must come to the space station orbiting a planet called Solaris. His friend tells him things are happening that are beyond comprehension, but Chris will understand when he gets there. When he gets there he finds things have gone wrong. But the only people left on the station, Snow (Jeremy Davies) and Dr. Gordon (Viola Davis), don't seem to be able to explain what happened. Snow tells Kelvin he will understand when he goes to sleep. So Kelvin goes to sleep and when he wakes his dead wife, Rheya (Natascha McElhone) is by his side. And then...it gets surreal.

Solaris got to me. Movies like this do. It raises very interesting questions. Some are questions about morality and imortality. Some are the kind of questions we will only be able to answer when we have passed on. Is this Kelvin's wife, or is it just an image of her compiled from his memories? Neither of them know. Why is Solaris doing this? Is it a gift or a curse? It made me wonder: how well do we really know other people; how well do we know ourselves; what will happen to us when it is all over? These things frighten me because I don't know.

This is not the type of film most mainstream audiences will embrace. I wish that weren't the case. Steven Soderbergh continues to surprise me. From Sex, Lies, and Videotape to Kafka to The Limey to Out of Sight to Erin Brocovich to Traffic to Ocean's 11, this guy just keeps pumping out exceptional movies. Solaris, even if this adaptation isn't as good as the original, is worth seeing. It's different.

Rating: 5 - Haunting
I was not very convinced when I went to see the movie because I did not think that George Clooney was a good choice for the main part. Clooney carries with him this stereotype of a modern Don Juan that does not lend itself well for a drama such as Solaris.
As soon as the story got going, however, Don Juan was totally erased both from my mind and from the scared psychologist walking the corridors of the space station.
I'm not trying to sell Clooney. Actually I think that all the actors playing characters present on the space station did an outstanding job. This is one of the elements that make this movie a success. Every single expression, slight movement, silence, carries true meaning.
The special effects that bring the outer space and planet background into the film are done well enough that I didn't notice imperfections. I think that Steven Soderbergh was right at keeping this aspect of the movie secondary, otherwise it might have become a disturbing element. This said, I enjoyed the nice shots at Solaris added here and there because they contributed to the overall mystery.
And the music. It's haunting. I kept looking for a pattern and couldn't find it. However the music seeped through my being while I was busy with the pictures and really got to me. I would hesitate buying the soundtrack, by the way, because I'm afraid that the sound without the images may not work so well. But the marriage of the two is one of the best I have experienced.
The pace is slow but I kept having to catch my breath, so captured I was.
To conclude, I would say that not all will like this movie. I brought my date with me and it turned out to be a mistake. She was annoyed. So this may be turn out to be a case of all or nothing; you will either hate it or love it.
A last comment: don't go see it if you're depressed.

Rating: 3 - Intriguing mood piece
Since nobody had the wherewithal or wisdom to re-release "2001" in the actual year 2001, a remake of Andrei Tarkovsky's comparable "Solaris" in 2002 would seem the next best thing. Like those two earlier films, Steven Soderbergh's latest work is something of an "art" science fiction film, far more concerned with philosophy and theme than with action and suspense. This may make the film a tough slog for modern day audiences who have been conditioned to be jolted out of their seats every five minutes while watching films of this genre. But for the deeper thinkers among us, "Solaris" offers a fairly intriguing sci-fi vision of the afterlife, a sort of new religious paradigm for the twenty-first century.

George Clooney stars as Chris Kelvin, a successful psychiatrist whose mentally ill wife - ironically enough, given his profession - killed herself a few years back. Chris is commissioned to travel to a space station orbiting the planet Solaris after strange things begin happening to the crew aboard the ship. It turns out that dead loved ones have started appearing to the people there, leading a number of the crewmembers to descend into madness and, in the worst cases, even commit suicide. It's not long before Chris' own dead wife, Rheya, arrives on the scene, prompting him to question whether she is real, a replica created for an unknown reason by the forces of the mysterious planet, or merely a figment of his own troubled conscience and imagination. The film taps into that desire we all have of somehow being miraculously reunited with a deceased love one. We can't help but be moved by Chris' intense desire to believe that all that is happening is real and that life with this person could indeed start back up where it left off. Clooney does a beautiful job conveying the inner struggle between the grieving husband who wants to reconnect emotionally with this strangely familiar woman whom he had thought forever lost to him and the rationalistic scientist who suspects that both she and their relationship are illusory and ephemeral. The film itself may be glacially paced, but the tension created by the situation pulls us through. Natascha McElhone brings an ethereal beauty to the role of the dead wife, and we are moved by her own confusion as to whether she is really this woman Rheya or merely some fabrication usurping the memories and feelings of someone long gone from the scene. Clooney and McElhone generate a strong romantic chemistry between them, both in the scenes aboard the ship and in the manifold flashbacks the storytellers use to reveal their relationship back on Earth. Viola Davis gives an intense performance as Helen Gordon, the rationalist of the group who tries to convince Chris that he must overcome his feelings and destroy this facsimile of Rheya or risk bringing potential destruction to the people back home.

"Solaris" has been shot in the widest screen ratio I have seen in years. It almost feels like one of those old Cinerama pictures from the 1950's and 1960's, which is surprising actually, given the fact that, for all its outer space trappings, the film is really an intimate, personal drama in quality and scale (if you rent this on video, do NOT opt for the "full screen" treatment; rather, make sure it is in the letterboxed format). Also, the set design and special effects are actually rather understated for a modern science fiction film - as is everything about "Solaris" in fact. Like "2001," "Solaris" is filled with images and concepts whose significance and meaning aren't always readily apparent or easily spelled out for the audience. Just be forewarned that the film is more along the lines of a tone poem than a rip-roaring action adventure tale.

"Solaris" isn't a great film and I can certainly see why many people, expecting something different, might find themselves becoming restive and bored by it. For me, the film managed to seep under my skin and kept me interested most of the time. This is definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but for those with patience and an appreciation for something a little different, "Solaris" has its share of rewards.

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Solaris