'Solaris' soars

Despite my preconceptions before seeing the movie Solaris, I shortly realized that they were misconceptions about this emotion-teasing, futuristic drama.

Tinkering around in my brain was the idea that Steven Soderbergh's (director of Traffic and Ocean's Eleven) Solaris would resemble an Event Horizon-esque science-fiction thriller. Instead of fast-paced, blood, and gutsy action sequences, the movie's plot unfurls at its own agonizingly unhurried pace. The story commences with Dr. Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) traveling from Earth to the Prometheus Space Station orbiting planet Solaris. After receiving a desperate request from his friend Gibarian (Ulrich Tukur), Kelvin decides that he may be able to help crewmembers face their inexplicable problems.

When he arrives, Kelvin discovers that Gibarian has committed suicide. The two remaining scientists, Gordon (Viola Davis) and Snow (Jeremy Davies), show signs of mounting insanity as well. Overnight, Kelvin too experiences the planet's mysterious aura in the form of his dead wife, Rheya (Natascha McElhone). Kelvin begins to wonder if Solaris can offer him another opportunity at love, real or unreal.

Soderbergh's super-slow panning and the plodding plot create a mountain of suspense. This same gradual pace allows for intense focus on each of the five characters. The resulting effect adds great depth and heightened involvement to a story that would otherwise be difficult to follow. It fuses past and present, Earth and space, interior thought and exterior action in a demonstrable mass of eloquent beauty.

Solaris abandons the flash and pop of fantastic sci-fi elements and exorbitantly futuristic gadgets. Instead, it focuses on the small, the within, a flicker of the eye, or a desperate silent scream.

Clooney excels as the far-flung hero crossing space for a friend and finding a little more insanity than he can digest. He deftly deals the cards of abstract emotion; it is the most-believable tarot reading thus far in his career. The characters combine into a purely elemental chemistry project. McElhone reinvents herself as the tall, icy-cool Rheya.

She imparts both an eerily complicated and an undeniably sympathetic aspect to the story.

As the intense and commanding Gordon, Davis provides the sense and reason for the bunch. And finally, Davies' character, Snow, adds a soupcon of comic relief through his spastic nature and oddly paroxysmal gestures.

With minimal gadgetry and fabulous psychological development, Solaris delves into not simply another planet, but into another pathway of thought about love, loss and redemption.