Solaris

Steven Soderbergh’s extremely sedate, Spartan science-fiction thriller and love story pits man’s common sense and perceptions of a higher power against his own dreams and desires. George Clooney stars as a psychologist who is beckoned by an associate to visit a space station orbiting the planet Solaris and investigate the strange behavior of the crew. He arrives to find that his friend has committed suicide, the station is haunted, and the two remaining crewmembers (Jeremy Davies and Ulrich Tukur) are unwilling to come home. The weirdness tightens several notches when Clooney’s character begins experiencing erotic, mystifying visits from his dead wife (The Truman Show’s Natascha McElhone). This immaculate metaphysical mystery (think Antonioni in space) is based on Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel, which also was filmed in 1972 by the late Andrei Tarkovsky.