Gattaca

As far as dystopian worlds go, Gattaca is fairly tame. There is no rogue AI on the verge of wiping out humanity, no twisted murder games for entertainment, no apocalyptic plague. We see no maniacal tyrants; in fact, it’s hard to pick out any one character in this movie who fits the classical villain archetype at all. The closest we get is Vincent’s brother Anton, who beyond having a superiority complex does nothing in the way of evil. Gattaca’s world is basically the same as ours, only differing in the fact that most citizens are genetically edited to be “perfect” before they are born. Those with superior genetic codes get preferential treatment, while those deemed inferior are looked down upon. While discriminating based on this is illegal, in practice we see how vastly having an unedited genetic code impacts one’s life. It is an extremely believable world, which leads it to feel more deeply unsettling than a movie about killer robots (though perhaps this too is feeling too realistic of late). It’s not too much of a stretch to see this exact same genetic discrimination play out once we develop the technology. We only have to look towards our own society to see how many similarities we already share with the world of Gattaca. So much of our lives is determined by our birth. Attractiveness, Family money, neurodivergence, race, medical conditions, anything and everything you are born with will affect you. Of course, nothing can truly predict how one will turn out; any attempt to fully predict someone’s future will always be flawed - humanity cannot be accounted for purely in terms of mathematical formulas. Even in a world like Gattaca, where humans are literally engineered, potential remains something only definable by the one it belongs to.
Vincent tries everything in his power to follow his dream and become an astronaut. It is not for lack of dedication that he initially fails. Despite all of his efforts, he simply cannot overcome the value given to him since birth; there is no world in which he would be hired over a genetically superior candidate. Because of this, he goes through an illegal black market process to assume the identity of Jerome, a former Olympic swimmer and extraordinary genetic specimen. Despite the meticulous efforts Vincent puts into hiding this, he should have failed. There are multiple moments in the film where he logically would have been found out, but the idea of an “invalid” being able to fool everyone and get as far as Vincent is so absurd, so far out of the bounds of reason, that they go through loops to avoid confronting this. It is their weakness that makes them unable to detect his. Nearly everyone in this world is religiously dedicated to the idea that genetics alone determine your potential. Vincent is the only one we see who resists this idea, and is by extension the only one able to escape it. Jerome, despite having every possible genetic advantage in swimming, only ever won a silver medal. Anton nearly drowns in an ocean swimming race against Vincent because he doesn’t believe he can exceed his own limits, while Vincent is able to disregard his own and “never save anything for the way back”. This incredible dedication by Vincent doesn’t come solely from his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut; he is rebelling against the limits he is told he has. This inner strength is something that could never be defined by DNA.
Gattaca isn’t just a story about a man fighting against twisted society, in fact, it’s debatable if Vincent is even in the right. He has preexisting conditions that make it likely that he will die on the mission he eventually goes on. There is no reason he should be selected over a lower risk candidate. Even in our world, NASA wouldn’t select someone with such a condition to space, and for good reason. This movie is not one overly focused right or wrong, how much of a hero Vincent is or how evil his oppressors are. Instead of trying to drill into your head how terrible a world like this would be, it addresses it at an ideological level and says this will never work. No matter how hard you try, how meticulous your methodology or precise your instruments, you will never be able to find a gene to account for the human spirit.