_Gattaca_ leads you to believe it's about the social consequences of genetically engineering people. It starts out with a couple of quotes about the wisdom of mucking around with Mother Nature, and it, originally, ends with a list of genetically "defective" people, like JFK and Einstein, who might never have been born in the world _Gattaca_ depicts.
But, I'm not sure genetic engineering is really what this movie is about. For one thing, Gattaca shows us that it's not really about the future. The world it presents doesn't even try to look like it. It looks like the '60s, seen through a nice golden filter. And, just as clearly, the problems its hero, Vincent, has, seem a lot like the problems most of us have. They're just a little more extreme.
In _Gattaca,_ society has profiling down pat. Résumés, educational records, credit ratings, consumer profiles, psychological measurements, demographics, and statistical analysis haven't got anything on the latest rage in categorizing people. _Gattaca_ has genetic profiling, and it's all of those things wrapped up into one. Have problems getting a loan, some insurance, or a job? Well, Vincent does too.
Vincent, you see, was conceived without the aid of genetic technicians. It's unfortunate, but it happens. Everyone already knows who he is and what he can, and can't, do. It's in his genetic profile. You don't question things like that, unless you're Vincent. It's just how things are. And that's never wrong.
But, in this case, it certainly seems wrong. Like most of the superficial distinctions we make between people, the ones we make in _Gattaca_ hurt more of us than just the folks who end up with the less flattering distinction. Vincent's roommate, for instance, is genetically perfect, but he's been, literally, crippled by his profile. Not even someone as flawless as him, it seems, can live up to the expectations of his category. And Vincent, as you might expect, can't live his down.
Vincent and his roommate are separated by a set of spiral stairs in their home. The stairs might remind you of the helical structure of a DNA strand, except, if you look closely, you might also notice that the spiral is backwards. Not only does it spin in the wrong direction, but Vincent lives at the top of the stairs and Jerome, the one with a great profile and a miserable life, lives at the bottom.
It turns out that the real difference between Vincent and Jerome isn't their profiles. The real difference is that Vincent decided, one day, that he wasn't going to pay attention to his profile anymore. But, Jerome, like most of the people in _Gattaca,_ can't. No one notices that the photograph that shows up whenever Vincent's blood is tested isn't Vincent's, because no one even looks at Vincent. It's his profile that matters. And Vincent's girlfriend gets so confused when she discovers that Vincent's profile doesn't belong to him that she thinks she doesn't know him anymore. Vincent was still Vincent, of course, only his category had changed.
Late in the movie, Vincent's girlfriend takes him to a piano concert. The performer plays very well, and his girlfriend tells him that this is because the pianist has twelve fingers. The composition, she says, can only be played by someone like that. But the piece he played sounded a lot like a piece composed, and originally performed, by Franz Schubert. Just like most of us, Schubert only had ten fingers. And just like everyone, Shubert had a background. He couldn't get work as even a choirmaster, because his parents were tradesmen. Everyone knew, at the time, that one of the best composers of the 19th century couldn't be a musician. It just wasn't in his profile.
