Welcome to Movie Shortens. Follow us today to a 1997 science fiction film called: Gattaca
/guh·ta·kuh/. Before we start, be aware: there are spoilers!
The movie begins with a scene of a man, Jerome Morrow, is having his morning routine before
going to work. He hides a bag of urine on his thigh and conceals a drop of someone’s
blood on his finger tip.
Jerome works at /guh·ta·kuh/Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. Every staff member at Gattaca
has to line up to go through a DNA test before entering the company. After finishing his
work, Jerome cleans his workstation as the Director Josef approaches him from behind.
He informs Jerome that his flight plan to Titan, Saturn's moon, is perfect with no error.
He also adds that Jerome will have a substance test and will leave for Titan in a week. As
Josef is leaving, Jerome starts to sprinkle something on the keyboard and leave a strand
of hair on a comb in his drawer.
When Jerome is about to leave, he has to do another DNA test again with his urine. Dr.
Lamar, who is doing his test, tells Jerome that he reminds him of his son. He congrats
Jerome for his flight plan.
Later on, a colleague named Irene congratulates him for being assigned for the coming mission.
Moments later, Jerome goes to the corridor and sees many people are surrounding a murder
scene.
In a flashback, he reveals himself to be Vincent Freeman and is born naturally. In this world,
a couple can choose to alter their children’s genes, which eventually will determine a child’s
social class. However, Vincent’s parents opted to conceive him naturally. Right after
he was born, the nurse took his blood and examined it. It showed a high probability
of disorders in his gene profile, which he will suffer in the future and an expected
lifespan of only 30,2 years.
Regretting their decision, Vincent’s parents decide to have their second child with altered
genes. Vincent’s brother, Anton Freeman is born healthy and becomes the beloved child.
Even though Anton is younger than Vincent, he grows faster and much stronger than his
older brother.
When Vincent is young, he develops a passion for space ventures and dreams to be an astronaut.
However, his parents discourage him and suggest he choose another line of work due to his
gene inferiority.
When it comes to job opportunities, he always fails as the recruiters always require a DNA
test. The “valid”, known as a person with appropriate genetic advantage, can get all
the high-paying jobs while “invalid”, those born naturally like him, are considered
second-class citizens and have to do menial work.
Later on, we can see Vincent and Anton compete by swimming into the open sea. Vincent leads
the race while Anton is too exhausted and starts to sink. This is the very first moment
Vincent can prove his ability. One day, Vincent leaves the house without saying a word with
his family.
Years later, Vincent starts his job as a janitor at Gattaca, where he can see the spaceships
being launched. When he is cleaning the room, he pretends to sit on a workstation as if
he were working as a navigator in Gattaca.
No matter how hard he trains or studies, he will never achieve his dream due to his genes.
Being so fed up with reality, Vincent comes into contact with a man who creates and “sells”
identities. The gentleman leads Vincent to a place where he finds the real Jerome Morrow,
a former swimmer with superior genes. Jerome suffered an accident and is now paraplegic.
Despite having superior genes, Jerome is not accepted in the society due to his paraplegia.
Jerome lives on the amount of money that he sells his DNA and identity for. Vincent would
pose as Jerome in Gattaca and would pay Jerome for lending his identity. Now, they begin
to make Vincent as much resembled Jerome as possible. After giving Vincent contact lenses
and new hair, they realize that Jerome is much taller than Vincent. Vincent has to go
through surgery to extend his legs.
When it comes to Vincent’s interview at Gattaca, he takes a sample of Jerome’s urine
and goes for it.
He passes the interview easily. Each and every day from then on, Vincent cleans his body
to avoid leaving any trace of his real identity while Jerome is preparing blood and urine
for him for the constant test.
Getting out of the flashback, Vincent approaches the murder scene and learns that a mission
administrator has been beaten to death. He leaves in silence but is unaware of dropping
an eyelash behind.
Later on, the police come to investigate and start to collect DNA traces near the scene
along with Vincent’s eyelash. While Irene is told to assist the police, Vincent is worried
that the investigation will interrupt the mission plan. However, the Director assures
him that it will take place as scheduled.
After getting home, Vincent lets Jerome know that his mission to Titan will happen in a
week. To celebrate the good news, Jerome asks Vincent to go out and drink. Jerome confesses
to Vincent that his paralysis was not an accident. Being placed silver medal in a competition
made him step in the high-way on purpose. Jerome says he is proud of Vincent while Vincent
tells Jerome to get some sleep.
At the police’s lab, they eventually find Vincent's eyelash, which reveals his identity
as in-valid. A primary detective quickly takes notice. He places Vincent as the primary suspect
and supposes that Vincent probably works in Gattaca.
The next day, Vincent sees the detective is talking with Irene. Moments later, Vincent
approaches Irene and asks if she knows anything about the suspect. She reveals to him that
they found an eyelash near the scene. Irene also admits to Vincent that she was suspicious
and looked through his identity via a strand of hair on a comb in his drawer. Irene then
apologizes to him and reveals that though she is a “valid”, she has a higher risk
of heart failure, which will prevent her from venturing deeper to space.
The next day, Irene sends Vincent the photo of the suspect, displaying on his screen.
Vincent is shocked after learning that the suspect is actually himself. All of a sudden,
the director appears from behind and points at Vincent’s screen. It turns out he is
talking about the mission’s crew and doesn’t even notice how similar Vincent and the murderer
are.
Vincent returns home, as he is so scared, he decides to escape and quit on his dream.
Jerome calms Vincent down and tells him to be more careful.
The next day, Vincent goes out for a date with Irene while the police are gathering
everyone to find the criminal. To investigate, they decide to take every piece of DNA evidence,
even the trash from everyone in Gattaca.
As Irene and Vincent are leaving, they run into a police checkpoint where they search
for contact lenses and DNA traces. Vincent quickly removes his lenses and suggests taking
his blood from his finger tip instead of saliva. That’s how he swiftly gets through the checkpoint
without arousing any suspicions.
In the meantime, at the crime lab, the police find another DNA trace on a paper cup that
matches with Vincent’s trace. This time, they decide to filter out the imposter and
search everyone by testing blood from the vein.
However, Vincent has some preparation. He pretends that the needle hurts him. He quickly
swaps his blood with Jerome’s blood that he prepared earlier.
Later on, Vincent meets Irene and tells her he only has 2 days left before the launching.
He then asks her out for a date.
Meanwhile, the detectives decide to check one more time as they can not find the suspect.
However, Director Josef supposes that the searching will disrupt their mission to Titan,
which only happens once every 70 years. Thus, the detectives decide to take a look in other
places.
That evening, when Vincent and Irene are on a romantic date, the detectives suddenly swarm
to search for the suspect. Vincent leads Irene to run away. As they encounter a cop, Vincent
knocks him out and keeps running away. While the detective follows, Vincent hides in a
corner with Irene. Instead of being determined or angry, the detective steps up and starts
to yell out Vincent’s name in a nervous tone. When Irene asks who Vincent is, Vincent
is about to answer but Irene leans closer to him and both start kissing.
After that, Vincent spends one night in Irene’s house. When he wakes up in the morning, he
goes to the beach to take a rock and clean his body. When Irene notices the scars on
his legs, he lies to her that it was an accident.
In the meantime, the detective finally figures out and starts to cross-reference the identities
of Jerome and Vincent. He later finds Josef and reveals that the suspect is Jerome. However,
the Director disbelieves him and adds that Jerome is the best navigator they have so
far. At this point, Irene overhears the conversation and decides to warn Jerome. Right after Irene
could warn Vincent about it, she runs into the detective, who asks her to lead him to
Jerome.
Meanwhile, the police are performing an autopsy on the corpse one more time and find a new
clue for the investigation.
While the detective is taking Irene to Jerome's place, Vincent calls Jerome to warn him and
tells him to prepare.
The real Jerome crawls upstairs and finally puts himself on a chair just in time when
Anton and Irene come in. This is the first time Irene meets the real Jerome. However,
she plays along with Jerome and is shocked after finding out the result of Jerome's DNA
test.
Disappointed by seeing no clue, the detective goes downstairs to investigate while Vincent
is hiding there. At this point, the detective receives a call informing that they have apprehended
the suspect.
As the detective leaves, Vincent walks upstairs and faces Irene, who is now leaving as she
can’t accept the fact that Vincent was lying to her the whole time. Vincent chases after
her and tells her he is an invalid. He adds that he has exceeded his estimated lifespan
and convinces Irene that the invalids do not always turn out to be their predicted outcome.
Irene gives him a confused look and leaves.
When the detective receives the result of the investigation, it turns out that Director
Josef is the murderer. The mission administrator threatened Josef to cancel the mission, and
for that he was beaten to death. The case is closed. However, the detective is not satisfied
with the result.
In the meantime, Vincent carries Jerome downstairs and decides to go and see the detective.
Vincent enters Gattaca and finally meets the detective, who reveals himself as Anton, Vincent’s
brother. Anton has discovered Vincent’s presence from the moment his eyelash was detected.
While Vincent claims that he doesn’t have anything to do with the murder, Anton believes
Vincent committed fraud and wants to “rescue” his older brother out. He challenges Vincent
to a chicken game. Eventually, both decide to go to the stormy sea, undress and start
to swim. To Anton’s surprise, Vincent surpasses him and keeps moving forward. Vincent reveals
that got this far in his life because he never doubts himself in whatever he does. As Anton
gives up and starts drowning, Vincent comes to rescue him and both back to the shore.
The next day, Vincent comes to see Irene and gives her a strand of his hair. He asks Irene
if she is still interested in testing him anymore. But Irene drops the strand of hair,
showing that she trusts him. The two saying goodbye before Vincent starts his mission
to Titan.
When Vincent comes to see Jerome and hands Vincent an envelope. He tells Vincent to only
open it when he goes to space.
On the day of the launch, Vincent goes to Gattaca and realizes that there is another
DNA test. However, Vincent doesn’t prepare any of Jerome’s samples and gives Dr Lamar
his own sample. To Vincent’s surprise, Dr Lamar, who does the test, reveals that he
knows Vincent has always been posing as Jerome. At this point, Dr. Lamar starts to tell Vincent
about his son, who admires Vincent and is valid but “not all that they promised”.
Dr. Lamar wonders if his son could exceed his potential just like Vincent. The doctor
changes the result into valid and allows Vincent to pass.
When the spacecraft starts to be launched, Jerome wears his silver medal. In the next scene,
we see the fire blazes, burning strongly and brightly. We all know his fate
Meanwhile, Vincent opens the envelope from Jerome and finds a lock
of Jerome’s hair. Like and Subscribe to watch more videos like
this, and don’t forget to turn on your notifications. That really helps my channel. Thanks for watching!