This could be one of those movies you go to and after about fifteen minutes you might be saying “what thuh?”. Or, you might not. My suggestion is to stick with this movie, it’s mighty cerebral, but worth the effort. I’m just trying to warn away those of you who like it simple.

George Clooney plays a psychologist who is asked to come to a space station orbiting the planet “Solaris”. It seems this planet is having quite an effect on the people on board the ship. Basically, you sleep, and when you wake up, you have a “visitor”. That visitor is someone you have strong emotional feelings about – for Clooney, that is his dead wife, played by Natascha McElhone.

This might sound like a case of “I see dead people”, but it is far from that. The wife is real all right, in fact everyone else on board can see her too. Not only that, but she is able to recall memories of her life with Clooney. Not all of them are pleasant. In fact, she is his “visitor” because he’d really like a second chance.

This movie is slow and quiet. At times, there is no dialogue and little action. The eerie soundtrack music plays on as we watch Clooney trying to figure out what’s going on. You might be trying to do the same thing. We flashback to Clooney and his wife’s time together on earth so often, you may be having trouble trying to separate the “here and now” from the “that was then”.

I eventually realized that I did like this change of pace movie. The only irritant was a character called Snow, played by Jeremy Davies. He’s another one on board the spacecraft and he twitches and mumbles and reels off non sequiters to the point of total annoyance. I guess he was supposed to be comic relief. I was just relieved when he was off screen.

The tough part here is figuring if this is a “guy movie” or a “chick flick”. It combines science fiction with romance fantasy, but I think the audience that will like it best are those who spend some time thinking about life and death and the time and space continuum. I actually don’t even know what that means, I just wanted to say “time and space continuum”. Anyway, I thought “Solaris” was unusual enough to recommend, just know that it really does not belong in a mainstream movie release category. It is an “art house” special. I give it a “7.0”.