Gattaca

Gattaca
Columbia Pictures, 112 minutes.
Cert. 15

'Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked?' (Ecclesiastes 7.13) - the text is used on screen at the beginning of this timely science fiction film, in the mould of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The audience is invited to consider the evidence before them . . .
Ethan Hawke is Vincent - a naturally conceived yet sickly child, compared to his brother Anton - a son who has been artificially conceived and the chosen foetus among several in the quest to eliminate genetically inferior traits. However, as Vincent grows, his one ambition is to fly on a space mission, and this becomes his all-consuming aim. He begins work at the space agency 'Gattaca' as a grade G cleaner. Yet he is driven to the extent that he is sold the genetic identity of Jerome, a healthy high-flyer who has been crippled, played by Jude Law. Vincent has to undertake painful surgeries and trick the constant genetic ID tests in order to fully assume Jerome's identity - and to fulfil his ambition for space flight. His new identity is soon in jeopardy when a murder is committed, and the premises of Gattaca are scoured for DNA evidence of anyone listed as 'in-valid'.
The film creates a 'politically correct' vision not of an Aryan state, but of elite workers including women, black and Asian people. But while modern mankind searches for political correctness in a trendy wave of general thinking, how close are geneticists pushing us towards a time when newborns are increasingly the 'chosen' foetuses, where grades of human 'perfection' determine our value in society? Aldous Huxley warned of such tampering in his foreboding novel. However, as Christians we have to humble ourselves to remember our own imperfections, and to recognise that those 'who trespass against us'- whatever positions they hold - are also members of a fallen human race. Our human weaknesses are those which God loves to use as strengths.
The film's advertisers have used the caption: 'There is no gene for the human spirit'. Is it simply a case of when our life's dreams are fulfilled, there is nothing left to live for, as the film implies? We have a purpose and a destination according to God's sovereign plan - we are his work of art, genetically engineered by the Creator (Ephesians 2.10)! This is an entertaining film, despite the fact that the characters are never fully developed in the complex triple storyline of sibling rivalry, love interest and murder mystery. It raises many important questions and opens the way for valid debate with colleagues.

Julie Skelton

© Evangelicals Now - May 1998
Please consider supporting this ministry by subscribing.

• Request Free Sample

Main Articles

• Churches and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995
  The provision of facilities in church buildings for disabled people
• A still small voice about sex
  An account of one parent's action at a preview of a new school course in sexuality
• Mad for it in Manchester
  An interview with Andy Hawthorne of The World Wide Message Tribe about evangelistic outreach among teenagers in Manchester
• After God's funeral
  Extracts from a talk given by Ravi Zacharias on the problem of moral relativism which follows atheism
• Why DO we go to church?
  The meaning of worship in the Old Testament and New Testament and its implications for our Sunday services
• By faith - the life of George Muller remembered
  An account of the life of George Muller the great Brethren philanthropist
• Eastern orthodoxy
  A brief history of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Orthodox church in Britain and evangelical witness to Greeks in London
• How are we to learn? (Bulldog for May)
  Ten points concerning teaching and preaching in the church with reference to the New Testament

Other articles

• News of the Hour (Marks Gospel)
• Gattaca
• IVP New Testament Commentary Series - Matthew
• Making Progress in Church Life
• Desert Child - or just how amusing can a nightmare be?
• Picking Up The Pieces - can evangelicals adapt to contemporary culture?
• Farm Sermons
• True Happiness - Exposition of Psalm 1
• Promise Keepers - and the rising tide of ecumenism
• The End of Science - Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age
• A Guide to the Puritans
• Pathway Through Grief - Ten accounts of people's experience following bereavement reviewed by Carol Gulliford and Barbara Morland
• At Break of Day
• Our Awesome God