DIRECTOR Andrew Niccol
PRODUCER Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher
CO-PRODUCER Gail Lyon
SCREENPLAY Andrew Niccol
PRINCIPAL CAST Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin, Jude Law, Loren Dean, Gore Vidal

There is an old Chinese saying: ''If you dont change your direction...you will end up where you're headed.'' There can be little doubt about the fact that we are headed toward a society in which naturally conceived and born children are considered genetically inferior to the test tube enhanced variety.

"We used to think our future was in the stars.

Now we know it is in our genes."

Gattaca is good bi-fi (biological fiction). It is a scary but probably quite realistic vision of our future. Jerome, played by Ethan Hawke, tries to assume the identity of an athlete in order to escape the status of 'in-valid' (a natural born lamer with a low GQ or genetic quotient) and travel into space with the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. A week before his flight, a Gattaca mission director is murdered and Jerome, a suspect, is hunted by the persistent identity investigators. His better-born colleague and love interest (Uma Thurman) begins to suspect him, and finally Jerome's deception starts to unravel. Like all of us, Jerome must face his true self. However, the plot twist in the third act, where we learn his brother is the chief investigator, fails to be credible, and fatally wounds the film.

Alan Arkin and Gore Vidal also appear . Vidal plays Director Josef, a genetically superior being, or 'valid', and great believer in the Gattaca system. No stranger to creation of fictional worlds, Vidal was also drawn to director Andrew Niccol's imaginative vision. "This was a very carefully written script and it's very rare that a script so intelligent and off-beat gets made," marvels Vidal. "The world of Gattaca is totalitarian, really. Genetic engineering makes people better, more beautiful, more desirable, but what price will we pay for it?"

Gattaca paints a perfectionist world in which human feelings are trying to burst out, but in which the quest to make a better society has destroyed individuality.

The film totally buys into the idea that as the technology increases, so does isolation. It's a tempting conclusion, if you make an exception for the technologies of communication perhaps. By now you must have noticed the eye-catching ads that make you wonder if Gattaca is fact or fiction.

By the way, Uma and Ethan have great chemistry, and it won't surprise anyone that they are romantically linked off screen as well.

see the movie website (clips available) here

--AHB