Its complicated in its portrayal, for sure. It comes off at a glance like “just signam grindset bro,” but really the protagonist had to lie, cheat and steal his way to his dream, while also being an absolute fatalist while pushing his body near to death. Even then, he still needed to convince a doctor to fake his results at the end. That’s not a pro “grindset” or “you can overcome” message really. It shows how absolutely fucked you are if you aren’t born into advantage, how weighted everything is against you.
The movie would have hit harder if he got to the end and got caught and denied his dream. Just end with him in prison, staring out a window up at the stars.
… did you watch Gattaca? Also it was kind of a flop so… you are in large company.
Spoilers for a movie that is almost 30 years old I guess
spoiler
Vincent’s brother is more or less mentally broken and likely to face career problems if people ever investigate what actually happened with the investigation… possibly because the astronaut died en route to Jupiter or whatever. Vincent himself is likely on a suicide trip. Jude Law’s character ACTUALLY commits suicide.
Gattaca’s ending is not a happy one. It is exactly what was said during the swimming scene. It is about putting your everything into an endeavor with no care for self preservation or “the swim back”. Which… very questionable understanding of genetics aside (very clear they were on the same sauce that Kojima was…), kind of is the “bootstraps” mentality distilled to a suicide run. Some people can succeed just by virtue of their birth and upbringing. Others more or less need to kill themselves to even have a chance. And… a lot of those people never even make it to the chance, let alone have a way to appreciate it.
Its complicated in its portrayal, for sure. It comes off at a glance like “just signam grindset bro,” but really the protagonist had to lie, cheat and steal his way to his dream, while also being an absolute fatalist while pushing his body near to death. Even then, he still needed to convince a doctor to fake his results at the end. That’s not a pro “grindset” or “you can overcome” message really. It shows how absolutely fucked you are if you aren’t born into advantage, how weighted everything is against you.
The movie would have hit harder if he got to the end and got caught and denied his dream. Just end with him in prison, staring out a window up at the stars.
Agree but people only want to watch happy endings.
… did you watch Gattaca? Also it was kind of a flop so… you are in large company.
Spoilers for a movie that is almost 30 years old I guess
spoiler
Vincent’s brother is more or less mentally broken and likely to face career problems if people ever investigate what actually happened with the investigation… possibly because the astronaut died en route to Jupiter or whatever. Vincent himself is likely on a suicide trip. Jude Law’s character ACTUALLY commits suicide.
Gattaca’s ending is not a happy one. It is exactly what was said during the swimming scene. It is about putting your everything into an endeavor with no care for self preservation or “the swim back”. Which… very questionable understanding of genetics aside (very clear they were on the same sauce that Kojima was…), kind of is the “bootstraps” mentality distilled to a suicide run. Some people can succeed just by virtue of their birth and upbringing. Others more or less need to kill themselves to even have a chance. And… a lot of those people never even make it to the chance, let alone have a way to appreciate it.