“I was haunted by the idea that I remembered her wrong.”
one of the greatest explorations of grief, guilt and what it means to remember. the perceptions of those we love manifesting into portraits of them, that are incomplete, because we always miss something, they’re always plagued by emotional biases and the memories of before and the pain of after. we can never really know a person fully, we can never have the complete image in our consciousness, but having someone special enough to have even a fragment there forever is more beautiful than anything. the best film of soderbergh’s life.

"I could tell you what's happening, but I don't know if it would really tell you what's happening."

Sodie's best!

More so Soderbergh's personal and postmillennial answer to Solyaris than a remake of it. He's the only director I ever would have wanted for this; same goes for Martinez in terms of composers (his score here is one of his best). And Jeremy Davies, man, what a performance.

"There are no answers, only choices."

Kind of like when Soderbergh stripped an hour-plus out of HEAVEN'S GATE. What's the most economical way to tell this story and allow the larger themes to remain pretty much the same? Which isn't to suggest this is at all without nuance, but it's a bit more clinical, more rational and ruthless with plot, sometimes at the expense of more abstract ideas or moments of lyricism.

Had a good conversation with Ilene about this, who pointed out that the movie wouldn’t work if Clooney’s character were a woman, because she’d be deemed too pathetic to empathize with. She’s right.

Christopher Nolan has been chasing Solaris his entire career and never thought to just remake it lol loser

You see Clooney’s butt!!

For all its intellectual probing, Tarkovsky’s film fails to get at the nature of humanity for the simple reason that none of its characters are remotely human. Soderbergh’s version supplies two eminently human characters, then charts their slow, painful journey into the beyond. Our memories betray us—unless it’s the other way around... Pictures don’t come much better than this.

No it's not as good as the original, but it's not trying to be the same kind of movie. There's a good reason Tarkovsky isn't credited as a writer on this: it's not a remake, it's a second adaptation of the book. Soderbergh's version is more about Kelvin's relationship with his wife rather than the existential issues involving identity, consciousness, etc. It also looks very nice and definitely brings in some influence from 2001.

I understand that when you make a movie that has the same name as another movie the comparisons are inevitable (hey, I even started my review with one!), but the fact that not being as good as one of the best sci-fi movies of all time hampered its reception is a bit unfair.

Minimalistic, but emotionally heavy, "Solaris" is a perfectly entertaining exploration of connection and grief from Soderbergh with some beautiful visuals and surprisingly great production design. But truth be told, I just didn't get it all that much. It's very meandering and massively symbolic, with a mind-boggling ending that sort of left me in a state of happy confusion.

Good film, possibly a great one, I just apparently need another watch down the line to truly experience it the way I presume it was intended.

#45 Entry in the | 52 Week Challenge 2025 |

My Last Review: | A Few Good Men |

Manages to branch off Tarkovsky's version and explore new ideas within the same material, some of which offers critiques of Tarkovsky's and Lem's visions. This version is also more emotionally probing, a strange feat for Soderbergh the ironic deconstructivist in relation to Tarkovsky the transcendant spiritualist. Oh, and it features Cliff Martinez's best, most beautiful score to date.