Solaris

A closer look at the story

Weighed down by personal loss, psychiatrist Chris Kelvin is summoned to an isolated research station near the planet Solaris. When he arrives, he learns that his friend, the station's commander, has died, and finds the two remaining scientists exhausted and withdrawn. Rather than explain what has been happening, they simply advise him not to fall asleep. On his first night, sleep wins, and he wakes to find Rheya, the wife he lost years before, beside him, and the line between reality and memory starts to blur. Adapted from Stanisław Lem's novel and directed by Steven Soderbergh, the 2002 film stars George Clooney, Natascha McElhone and Viola Davis in a quiet science-fiction drama about love, grief and second chances.