Movie Reviews

So this might be a bit of a cop-out, but I've got to say that I'm not sure I can give a totally fair rating to this movie without first seeing it a second time. It's not one of those movies with a surprise twist ending or anything like that, it's just that there's so much subtlety here, and so many unanswered questions, that it cries out to be seen again in order to absorb it all.

Still, I can say for a fact that I really liked it. It's so refreshing to see a movie that doesn't take the audience's (lack of) intelligence for granted. This is a movie that demands you to really think about it, because if you don't you're bound to be turned off by it. But if you pay attention (and, most likely, if you see it a second time), you'll find very poignant treatments of themes such as love, loss, memory, and, overarching them all, the idea of an individual's own personal utopia.

Another aspect I really appreciated was the thoughtful pacing and direction. The film does not exactly focus on the 'unexplainable' events onboard the space-station orbiting Solaris. Instead, it really focuses on the characters' reactions to these events, and the variety of emotions they experience, whether it be confusion, fear, sadness, etc. Consequently, we spend a lot of time simply watching characters think about and react to events, as opposed to lingering over the events themselves. Some people might understandably find that this results in a 'slow' movie -- I'd argue that it results in a wonderfully 'subtle' movie.

If I had one complaint about the film, it would be that I found it almost too short. It was such an intriguing thing to watch what these characters were going through (and compliments should go to all the actors for doing such a good job) that the film's 100 minutes didn't quite seem long enough.

If you like films that'll have you thinking about them for days after leaving the theatre, Solaris is a good pick.