Film: Who's the Designer?

Gattaca's utopian world of designer genes is still fallen | Chris Stamper

Imagine a futuristic place where all sexism, racism, and homophobia have been wiped out. Instead, everybody with a real job is a test-tube baby designed by a geneticist to have the perfect collection of Mommy and Daddy's genes. But the "love children" who are conceived the old-fashioned way are declared invalid and only serve menial functions in society. Instead of resumés, job seekers give blood samples, and potential husbands and wives exchange hair specimens.

That's the dystopia of the movie Gattaca. This marriage of Orwell, Huxley, and Hitchcock plays off recent headlines about cloned sheep, The Bell Curve, and the Human Genome Project. Vincent (Ethan Hawke), our invalid hero, born without benefit of genetic engineering, enters the space program by beating the system. He finds a genetic wunderkind (Jude Law) who has been paralyzed in an accident. In exchange for room and board, he borrows Mr. Perfect DNA's identity and tissue samples. He leaves his job as a janitor and moves up to the big leagues.