Could have, should have, would have… Those were the three remarks whizzing through my brain as the closing credits of Steve Soderbergh’s “Solaris” scrolled. If only it were released in limited theaters, maybe audiences would have known what they were getting into. If “Solaris” was filmed as an independent movie, Soderbergh’s efforts probably would have been hailed as being ingenious. But, it wasn’t. Four people walked out of the theater as I watched this film-they simply weren’t prepared for its artsy-ness. It just goes to show you what can happen when a brainy sci-fi is marketed as a George Clooney romance; audiences rebel for being deceived.
But, let us put off these marketing issues for the time being and get into the story. George Clooney plays Chris Kelvin, a widowed psychologist living in an urban city of the far-off future. He is ordered by some mysterious corporate-political organization to travel to the space station Prometheus orbiting the planet Solaris to rectify a mission gone horrifically haywire. Kelvin is told that security has “already been sent in” and that strange and bizarre occurrences have taken place. These events are never substantiated before he departs. Why anyone would abide by such vague orders, given the circumstances, is beyond me.
When Kelvin boards the spaceship and finds nearly every nook and cranny to be covered with blood, it is clear that something has gone terribly awry. After several minutes of unnecessary, uneventful wandering, he eventually meets the troubled, obsessed survivors: Gordon (Viola Davis) and Snow (Jeremy Davies). Something has been haunting these two individuals, but Kelvin is initially unable to get a grip on what it is, for they are reluctant to reveal their worries.
All of Kelvin’s questions are answered, however, when his wife, Rheya (McElhone), appears before him in his sleep chamber that night. He is both grateful and shocked to see her, considering she has been dead for several years.
Has Rheya truly come back to life? Obviously, the answer is no. The loner Snow, whose visitor was actually a replica of himself, informs Kelvin that Rheya is merely a figment of his memory, an organic depiction of what he remembers her to be. Gordon, on the other hand, insists that the entity is real-a metaphysical manifestation brought on by Solaris, the gassy purple-pink planet below.
Kelvin accepts both propositions; he knows Rheya is not real in a traditional sense, but he wants to stay with her nonetheless. He begins to understand why the scientists didn’t just return to Earth in the first place.
If “Solaris” wasn’t released during the aggressive movie season, I would have thought it was a genuine effort made by Soderbergh to direct a thought-provoking film. (By the way, James Cameron, the director of “Titanic,” also produced “Solaris”.) But given that it’s being released at the time of the year when the most ambitious films hit theaters, it seems like a desperate attempt made by Soderbergh to show off. Perhaps he’s thinking that this will be a sure-fire way to get his name into the running for this year’s Oscars. While his intentions might be honorable, the execution is quite deceptive.
Probably the most significant aspect of “Solaris” that bugged me was the ridiculous amount of flashbacks. One of the golden rules in filmmaking is to avoid flashbacks, and this movie utterly fails the follow that principle. Granted, I sometimes enjoy being invited into a character’s past and having an “Aha!” experience, when it all fits together.
This movie, however, relies on flashbacks to get its point across. You don’t watch “Solaris” to see what happens, you watch it to see what happened.
Even when Kelvin boards the deserted space ship, it feels like you’re watching the epilogue of an action-packed novel. You don’t even know that Rheya is Kelvin’s wife until a flashback two scenes later reveals that she is. From a cinematograpic perspective, the flashbacks are wonderful, but the fact that they’re flashbacks is extremely annoying.
As a result of the flashback issue, the plot itself is very basic. The entire movie follows a narrow, almost formulaic, array of events: Kelvin arrives on spaceship, meets his deceased wife, has several conversations with her, realizes that he didn’t pay enough attention to her in life and is now falsely remembering her, argues with other crew members, and eventually joins Rheya in some fantasy realm.
I was waiting for something profound to happen, but it never did. Though slightly eerie in tone, “Solaris” is very quiet and tame. It begs for interpretation once it ends. Too bad some viewers never reached that point.
For the casual movie-goer, “Solaris” is too artsy to bear. It’s not a movie that a viewer is going to watch once and understand everything about it. Unfortunately, most people won’t be able to sit through this dry film once, let alone twice. I suppose the moral is to play to your audience. Cameron marketed this film as being a dramatic, futuristic romance, and opened it across the country. If it was shown in limited theaters, and people learned about it by word of mouth, they probably would have known what they were getting into. Mr. Soderbergh, if you’re going to direct a brainy, artistic sci-fi, do it the right way and don’t cast big-name stars and try to tone it down for the average watcher.
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