Cult Corner: ‘Gattaca’ Is The Futuristic Thriller That Works Better Today Than It Did In 1997

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Gattaca

When we talk about streaming culture, we’re usually enthusing about what’s new, but one of the best things about streaming is how it’s made old and obscure cult hits available to a new generation. Presenting Cult Corner: your weekly look into hidden gems and long-lost curiosities that you can find on streaming.

Gattaca is a movie with one big problem: It was ahead of its time. The beautifully-crafted thriller combined growing anxiety about eugenics with the plot of sexy film noir, but it was universally rejected by audiences when it debuted in 1997. The film opened in fifth place and didn’t recoup half of its $36 million budget. Still, Gattaca did earn itself a small, vocal group of supporters. Critics of the era lauded the film and pop culture nerds — like yours truly—discovered it on premium cable. In the late ’90s, you could hardly put on HBO without catching a scene from Gattaca.

Gattaca takes place in “The Not Too Distant Future,” in an America governed not by the belief that everyone is born free and equal, but that our genetic code determines our place in society for life. Ethan Hawke‘s Vincent was a rare child born out of “love.” Upon birth, his religious mother and nervous father are given a laundry list of genetic imperfections and probable illnesses that will beleaguer Vincent throughout life. To combat this, they treat him like fragile glass and produce his younger brother “the natural way.” Meaning, they visit a geneticist who custom orders a kid with the DNA that will make him a winner.

Vincent, though, will not be deterred from his dreams. Desperate for a way into space, he goes to the black market and teams up with one Jerome Morrow (Jude Law, who, in one of his first big roles, steals every scene from Hawke), a disgraced, but genetically perfect, man. Jerome was bred for glory. He’s handsome, smart, and has an Olympic swimmer’s body. He also has a broken back.

Together, the two form an unholy alliance. Vincent takes on Jerome’s complete genetic identity. This means that every morning, every bit of extraneous DNA must be scourged from Vincent’s body. He has to apply false thumbprints filled with drops of Jerome’s blood. He even has to wear a bag of the “superior” man’s urine around his thigh to ace routine genetic tests.

All of this work is to give Jerome a plush living in the dark and Vincent a chance at his dreams. But on the eve of Jerome’s big launch into space, someone is found murdered at Gattaca, his place of employment. Soon the cops are investigating everyone on the campus and in the heat of all this, Vincent falls for a beguiling co-worker (Uma Thurman) with a secret of her own. All in all, it’s a really tightly woven thriller that constantly forces us to question how we perceive ourselves and others. Gattaca is great!

But let’s go back to the late ’90s – and let’s figure out why the film never caught on. This was a time when science fiction was best-served overblown and with tons of explosions. Independence Day had walloped the summer box office the summer before and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was on the horizon. Even with its alien abductions and scenes of macabre horror, The X-Files was considered to be on the smart and serious side of sci-fi. This was a time the predates our obsession with dystopian literature and it would take Battlestar Galactica to convince mainstream audiences that science fiction could be grounded and gritty. Gattaca simply didn’t fit in.

So, Gattaca, with its elegant plot and even more exquisite set design made nary a dent on the culture of the time. But thanks to its art deco edges and 1950s costume design, the film still ironically feels slick and futuristic eighteen years after its debut. Gattaca could still be set in the nebulous “Not So Distant Future.” The film is consumed with humans meddling with their DNA, custom ordering children, and prepping for privatized space travel. Now with the news that we can, in fact, custom order the gender of our children and as Space X and NASA head further into the great beyond, the “Not So Distant Future” isn’t so far away. In fact, our kids’ generation might be dealing with the pressures of Gattaca in real life.

Pretty spooky, huh?

[Watch Gattaca on Prime Video]