Solaris is a 2002 science fiction film directed by
Steven SoderberghSteven Andrew Soderbergh is an American film producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and an Academy Award-winning film director...
and starring
George ClooneyGeorge Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Clooney has balanced his performances in big-budget blockbusters with work as a producer and director behind commercially riskier projects, as well as social and liberal political activism...
.
It is based on
the science fiction novelSolaris is a Polish science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem , published in Warsaw in 1961 and is his best known work in English translation. While the narration suggests that humans study the planet, the opposite seems to be the case, where the titular alien planet, Solaris, examines the secret and...
by
PolishThe Polish people, or Poles , are a Western Slavic ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. Poles are sometimes defined as people who share a common Polish culture and are of Polish descent. Their religion is predominantly Roman Catholic...
writer Stanisław Lem (which also inspired the critically acclaimed 1972 Soviet film
of the same nameSolaris is a Russian film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. It is based on the novel of the same name by Polish science fiction author Stanisław Lem...
, directed by
Andrei TarkovskyAndrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist and opera director....
, and a
1968 TV filmSolaris is a 1968 TV film inspired by the novel Solaris by Stanislav Lem. It was written by N. Kemarsky, directed by Boris Nirenburg and was a Central Television production.-Cast:* A. Pilius as Hari* Vasily Lanovoy as Chris Kelvin...
).
Plot
Chris Kelvin is played by
George ClooneyGeorge Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Clooney has balanced his performances in big-budget blockbusters with work as a producer and director behind commercially riskier projects, as well as social and liberal political activism...
and Rheya by
Natascha McElhoneNatascha McElhone is an English actress of stage, screen and television, best known for her roles in Ronin, The Truman Show and Solaris. McElhone also plays a leading role in the Showtime series Californication....
. Similar to the Tarkovsky film, this version of
Solaris is a meditative
psychodramaPsychodrama is a form of human development which explores, through dramatic action, the problems, issues, concerns, dreams and highest aspirations of people, groups, systems and organizations.Psychodrama is a form of human development which explores, through dramatic action, the problems, issues,...
set almost entirely on a
space stationA space station is an artificial structure designed for humans to live in outer space. To date, only low earth orbital stations have been implemented, otherwise known as orbital stations...
, adding flashbacks to the previous experiences of its main characters on Earth.
A psychiatrist still dealing with the loss of his wife, Chris Kelvin receives a disturbing video message from a friend and scientist, Gibarian, asking for Chris' help and that he must come to the enigmatic planet, Solaris. He agrees to go on the mission to Solaris as a last attempt to recover the crew. Kelvin, arriving at the space station, quickly learns that members of the crew have died (or even disappeared) under mysterious circumstances with the only two surviving members reluctant to explain the cause. After shockingly encountering his dead wife alive again, Chris discovers that Solaris has been creating physical replications of people familiar to each crew member. Up until the end, Chris struggles with the questions of Solaris' motivation, his beliefs and memories, and reconciling what was lost with an opportunity for a second chance.
Cast
- George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Clooney has balanced his performances in big-budget blockbusters with work as a producer and director behind commercially riskier projects, as well as social and liberal political activism...
as Chris Kelvin
- Natascha McElhone
Natascha McElhone is an English actress of stage, screen and television, best known for her roles in Ronin, The Truman Show and Solaris. McElhone also plays a leading role in the Showtime series Californication....
as Rheya
- Viola Davis
Viola Davis is an American actress. Davis is known primarily as a stage actress, and won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play and a Drama Desk Award for her role in King Hedley II...
as Gordon
- Jeremy Davies
Jeremy Davies is an American film and television actor. He is mostly recognized through his acting in Saving Private Ryan, The Million Dollar Hotel and Lost.-Early life:...
as Snow
- Ulrich Tukur
Ulrich Tukur is a German actor and musician.-Biography:Tukur spent his youth near Hanover where he finished his final secondary-school examinations in 1977. He also achieved a high school degree in Boston during an exchange of students where he met his first wife, Amber Wood. With her, he had two...
as Gibarian
Critical reception
Director Steven Soderbergh admits (on the DVD commentary track) that marketing was a challenge. The movie's
trailerTrailers or previews are film advertisements for feature films that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a film program. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to...
depicted a science fiction love story (or thriller) and may have raised expectations among potential film-goers that were not met, grossing $15 million (against an estimated $47 million budget).
The
Time Out Film Guide describes this version as superior to the Tarkovsky version. However, the overall critical reception and popular votes do not share this opinion.
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films. The name derives from the historical cliché of throwing tomatoes and other produce at stage performers if a performance was particularly bad.- History :...
gave the film a 64 percent fresh approval rating, which is a positive score but far from that of the Tarkovsky's adaptation, which earned a 97 percent rating. The
Internet Movie DatabaseThe Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, video games, and most recently, fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media...
user ratings (as of April 2008) for the two versions are 6.2 and 8.2, respectively.
Lem himself, even though he did not see the movie, called Soderbergh's film a "remake of the
Tarkovsky movieSolaris is a Russian film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. It is based on the novel of the same name by Polish science fiction author Stanisław Lem...
", and criticized it as departing far from his original intentions in writing the novel by focusing almost exclusively on the psychological relationship between the two main characters:
External links