“I remembered her wrong.”

For all its high-brow, nebulous musings on the nature of the universe, reality, and perception, Steven Soderbergh’s version of Solaris is also a confession of sorts – a mea culpa for patriarchy in broad terms, and for the male gaze, specifically. By virtue of telling this tale from the perspective of its male protagonist – clinical psychologist Dr Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) – Solaris ultimately explores the end result of men’s perception of women.

The film differs significantly from both the source novel of the same name, by Stanislaw Lem, and from the film adaptation of 1972, by Andrei Tarkovsky. It is within this difference – this altered focus – that the mea culpa lies. Dr Chris Kelvin is drafted in by a corporation n...

Please subscribe to keep reading.