Force Fed Films: Solaris (2002)

This week Puneet actually found a science fiction film I hadn't seen before! I couldn't believe it. And it stars the talented George Clooney no less! It's called Solaris. It seems that this is actually a remake of a much older film, which I also haven't seen, so I won't be able to speak in terms of comparing the two. Nevertheless, I was excited to see Mr. Clooney in action in his big reflective bubble space helmet! More of that after the jump.


In Solaris George Clooney takes on the role of Chris Kelvin. You may think from the cover of the movie that he's an astronaut. But he's not. He's just a psychologist, who happens to live in the future where space travel is fairly normal. One day he gets a strange message from a friend. This friend is on a scientific research space station orbiting a strange new planet called Solaris. He kind of rambles and babbles on vaguely about strange occurrences on the station and how no one wants to leave. The message is brought to him by the company who owns the facility. They've already tried sending in an armed force to find out what's going on and bring the crew back, but they lost contact and never returned. Now, because the message asks for Chris by name to come help, the company asks if he'll go and find out what's going on. Maybe they'll be more receptive of him.

Solaris feature some beautiful visuals that totally hold up

While on paper this premise sounds completely amazing, in practice, not so much. This turned out to be a very slow, very quiet, thinking man's sci-fi, rather than the spooky/scary/action filled kind I'm used to. There is a mystery, several of them in fact, that were very interesting, but they just never paid off for me.

To talk at all about this movie, I'll have to give a bit more away about the plot. Namely, what the weird thing is that is occurring on the station. Alright, so Kelvin (what kind of lame sci-fi name is that?) shows up on the station and everyone is acting weird. There's bloody trails leading to the lab, and he hears creepy screams and sounds from down the hall. Turns out one guy is just watch TV or something, and that's the end of the creepy tension for the rest of the movie. The armed team that was mentioned earlier is also sort of brushed to the side and ignored. The few remaining crew members seem visibly disturbed and they talk about dreams and "how long can you go without sleep?"

Clooney arrives on the creepy station above Solaris

Eventually Kelvin goes to bed. He dreams of his wife and we move into the dream and it becomes a flashback of when they met and some time they spent together. Now here's the weird part; he wakes up and his wife is there with him in the space station. You know what's even weirder? She died several years ago.

Apparently all the crew members of the station above Solaris have been getting visitors, or a guest. They seem completely real and are exactly how they are remembered. They know things only that person would know. Unfortunately, we don't get to see all the other "ghosts" and in fact you just never see or are ever told what/who visits the only female crew member. Seemed like a bit of a cop-out if you ask me. If anything, this movie seems to just be trying it's best to merge religion and science fiction. It's a little heavy handed if you ask me.

Chris' dead wife suddenly shows up on board the station. Did she come from Solaris?

This movie is extremely moody and has lots of atmosphere though. It's very quiet and has lots of soft yet strange music to fill in the silence. There are very few people on the space station too, so the whole thing feels very remote. Like you're on the edge of the universe and no one has ever come this far out before.

Generally I liked the acting and the actors. They all seemed believable as these characters, even if most of them had no depth, save for Kelvin and his wife Rheya, played by Natascha McElhone (remember her from Ronin?).

I realize that most of this sounds like I've been praising Solaris, and it's true that it has a lot of good pieces. In fact I don't think I even mentioned visuals, but those are also good. The problem lies all in the story. It primarily focuses on Chris' relationship with his wife, and some concepts of religion and beliefs and God. We almost see more in flashbacks than we do on the space station, and there are plenty of scenes of things like Rheya talking to a mysterious person in the hall, and we never find out who that was.

Nearly the entire cast. I think they might be watching their own movie...

Maybe it's that this movie just went over my head? Maybe I just don't get it. There just seems to be a lot of stuff that is just never explained, and for no good reason. They lay down interesting crumbs, but then they ignore the trail they've made and veer off in a different direction. I just never felt satisfied with what happened, and I didn't really care about any of the relationships in the film. Funny enough though, I never actually felt bored, probably because it looked so good and kept me thinking until it just ended disappointingly.

I don't think I could recommend Solaris, I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't find it interesting anyways. I'm sure there are a few out there who would, but I get the feeling it wouldn't be many.