Word: niccol
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Writer-director Andrew Niccol, a New Zealander up out of commercials and making his debut in features, is less successful with the big things than he is with these little ones. His vision of a heavily sanitized and overrational future is perhaps inevitably more chilly than chilling. And since emotion has been bred out of most of the people he's concerned with, the movie's relationships--notably a romance between Vincent and a co-worker played by Uma Thurman--tend to be distant and not very involving...
...intriguing premise that goes a long way toward making an impressive though uneven feature film debut for writer-director Andrew Niccol. Gattaca, unfortunately, fails to explore the subtler ramifications and genuinely disturbing socio-economic implications of the situation it introduces. This lack is less than satisfactorily replaced by the individual drama it centers on instead--it's the old, old story of the lone hero who refuses to play the hand that's dealt...
...Gattaca sucks you in visually, drawing attention away from the dramatic flaws. There's a cool, postmodern bleakness to Niccol's vision, and a deftly understated mingling of present-day genetic and computer/technological paranoia, which proves more effective than a flashier sci-fi approach would have been. Niccol also has a way with suspended images, and his most inspired moments, in fact, are purely visual: a pool of blood, spreading from an unseen source, blots the frigidly hygienic, monochromatic polish of Gattaca; a conventionally romantic evening at a piano recital turns suddenly surreal with the appearance of an immaculate...