A unique combination of metaphysical romance and science fiction, Solaris stars George Clooney as Chris Kelvin, a psychologist ordered to inspect a space station in orbit around an alien planet and find out why it has stopped communicating. Unknowingly, Kelvin is drawn by the planet’s mysterious power to sort through the human psyche and re-create lost loved ones, in his case, his dead wife (Natascha McElhone). Kelvin then dedicates his energies on bringing his wife back to earth. Directed by Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich, Traffic), every inch of the film was shot with bodies and faces that it emphasizes the human soul as the movie’s real subject instead of outer space. However, since Solaris is set in ambiguous environment and drove by a script that was written just to implicate things and not really show it, it serves to displace our capacity to really connect with the characters, leaving the film defective of emotional depth. At least Jeremy Davies brings a bit of humor to otherwise serious scenes as a lingering crew of the space station.
–Bret Fetzer