Stylishly scoped with ice-blue hues and smartly visualized with a forbiddingly cold design, Gattaca is an intelligently-conceived sci-fi chiller starring Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman.

An institutional hush envelops the compelling cautionary fable Gattaca as if it were muffled by a velvet lab coat.

A thoughtful hybrid of sci-fi, thriller, and character drama; to give you some idea of its high-mindedness, it not only opens with a relevant Bible verse (Ecclesiastes 7:13), but in the opening credits that follow, Gore Vidal is fifth-billed.

The screenplay is tightly written with a fascinating premise that explores society’s overemphasis on genetic manipulation as a panacea for woes they’ve invented for themselves.