Review: Solaris
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
MPAA rating: PG-13 (for sexuality/nudity, brief language and thematic elements)
Running time: 2:00
Release date: 2002
Cast: Ulrich Tukur, Viola Davis, Jeremy Davies, Natascha McElhone, George Clooney
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
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Endlessly repeating the same process and hoping for different results was Einstein's definition of insanity. Yet compulsive repetition makes for terrific films, such as Groundhog Day and Solaris, Steven Soderbergh's enigmatic sci-fi sonnet starring George Clooney as an astro-psychologist who could use a shrink himself.

When Dr. Chris Kelvin (Clooney) travels to a distant space station to treat hallucinating scientists orbiting the ocean planet Solaris, his dead wife, Rheya (Natascha McElhone), appears, dies again and reappears. Is she an apparition? A projection of the therapist's grief? A fabrication of the planet's higher intelligence?

As Kelvin falls into his old emotional patterns with Rheya, he despairs that they are doomed to relive their melancholy past.

Inspired by the novel from Polish writer Stanislaw Lem and the 1972 film by Andrei Tarkovsky (which was billed as the Soviet response to 2001: A Space Odyssey), Soderbergh's film is a contemplative chamber movie. One, I should add, that includes many sequences focused on Clooney's naked, pert posterior.

On the space station Prometheus there are basically four characters, two of whom - Rheya and trippy scientist Snow (Jeremy Davies) - may be ghosts.

The nearest thing to a balanced human is Dr. Helen Gordon (Viola Davis), who correctly guesses that Solaris uses human survivor guilt to create ghosts to haunt those scientists who come close to solving the mystery of the ocean planet.

Set in the near future, where minimalist design and maximalist anxiety prevail, Solaris is one of those films, such as 2001 and Contact, in which the trip to deep space is symbolic for the psychic journey inward.

But instead of trying to decode an inscrutable monolith, Solaris' characters try to decipher interstellar and interpersonal relationships, which are no less mysterious.

Clooney is at his introspective best when Soderbergh is behind the camera (see Out of Sight, Ocean's Eleven), revealing shadowy depths beneath the veneer of charm. Here the actor suggests both suspended animation and disbelief. Soderbergh's sensuous close-ups (he served as cinematographer under his nom de camera Peter Andrews) do a lot to bring the viewer into Kelvin's mind, roiling and luminous as the vistas of Solaris.

The subtle metallic glints off Philip Messina's decors and Milena Canonero's costumes suggest the fugitive flashes of insight that the characters intuit about Solaris' being a mirror of their inner lives.

For those who have seen Tarkovsky's moody original, let me say that Soderbergh skims the fat from the 1972 film. What's left is a rich stew of longing.

The hope held out by Solaris is that Kelvin and Rheya will stop reliving their dance of death and instead start living life.