The following contains spoilers. Do not read before seeing the movie.

"Solaris" (2002) is a challenging movie, and I decided to set down here my explanation of it in the hope that some people might find that helpful. However, my explanation is only one among several that are plausible. If you have an explanation you prefer, go with that. Incidentally, some people bring to their interpretation of the film knowledge of Lem's novel and the 1972 Russian movie, but my intention is to adhere solely to the content of the 2002 version.

The events in "Solaris" are not shown in chronological order, and it seems to me that is the main difficulty in understanding the movie. I'll give my version of the chronology of events below, but first let me briefly give my take on some of the film's big ideas so as to supply a frame of reference.

The movie is set in the not-so-distant future, and the key events occur after humans have established a space station around the mysterious planet Solaris. The space station is operated by a private company, which is evaluating the planet for commercial use, perhaps as an energy source. However, Solaris is a giant, super-intelligent living organism that reacts to the presence of the humans by causing facsimiles of humans to pop up on the space station. The humans on board and the facsimile-humans interact, and mankind's first contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial entity unfolds in a mind-boggling way.

In the part of the movie that takes place aboard the space station, we see only two live humans: psychiatrist Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) and crew member Helen Gordon (Viola Davis). In addition to the two humans, we see four facsimile-humans on the space station. As the two humans struggle to understand the nature of the alien life-form they have encountered, they receive what purports to be information from the facsimile-humans. But I don't think we, the viewers, can necessarily take what facsimile-humans say at face value. This is partly because the facsimile-humans' knowledge is likely to be limited, but also because they are generated by Solaris, and the planet has its own agenda—even if we can't figure out what that agenda is.

Keeping the above in mind, here's my take on the chronology of events in the movie:

Bachelor Chris Kelvin lives on Earth in an unidentified city, where he works as a shrink. He attends a party where he chats with his friend Gibarian (Ulrich Tukur), father of a baby boy. At the party, Kelvin also meets Rheya (Natascha McElhone), a woman he has seen before on a train.

Kelvin and Rheya enjoy a period of courtship, fall in love, and marry. During a rocky stretch of their marriage, she finds out she is pregnant, but has an abortion. Angry that he wasn't consulted about the abortion, Kelvin storms out. He later returns to find that Rheya has committed suicide.

Several years pass. Little has changed for Kelvin, except he is now a lonely widower who has grown older. One day he gets a message from his old friend Gibarian, who is aboard a space station orbiting Solaris. Gibarian is deeply distressed and pleads with Kelvin to come to the station to help him with a problem.

Kelvin travels to the space station, which apparently had a crew of about five. There he meets a creature he mistakes for the crew member Snow, but that creature is actually Facsimile-Snow (Jeremy Davies), who is masquerading as the human Snow. (Later, Facsimile-Snow claims that 30 seconds after he was created, he killed the human Snow in self-defense.) According to Facsimile-Snow, Gibarian has committed suicide, a crew member named Coutard was killed, and a crew member named Reese has disappeared.

Kelvin then meets crew member Helen Gordon. Although he doesn't yet realize it, she is the only live human left on the station by the time of his arrival. Her behavior and some noises indicate that she is keeping a facsimile of some human in her quarters, but that facsimile is never seen or identified.

Elsewhere on the station, Kelvin encounters what looks like a boy, but is actually Facsimile-Michael, a facsimile of Gibarian's son. (The human Michael is back on Earth.)

Kelvin goes to sleep and is awakened by Facsimile-Rheya, who has materialized out of nowhere. Realizing she is not human, Kelvin entices her into crawling alone into some sort of a pod, which he then launches into space with her inside it.

Kelvin again goes to sleep, and he is again awakened by Facsimile-Rheya. Gordon talks as if she believes there are now two separate versions of Facsimile-Rheya: one version is on the space station and the other is in a pod somewhere out in space. Another possibility is that Solaris destroys Facsimile-Rheya in the pod before creating the second Facsimile-Rheya on the station. In any case, the second version of Facsimile-Rheya acts as though she has no knowledge of any previous version.

Even though Kelvin knows that Facsimile-Rheya is not human, the second time around he cannot resist falling in love with her. He tells Gordon he plans to take Facsimile-Rheya to Earth, but Gordon strenuously objects. She tells Kelvin that (1) he is being manipulated by Solaris; and (2) he is proposing a course of action that might very well have disastrous consequences for the entire human race. In the course of the argument, Facsimile-Rheya seemingly becomes aware for the first time that Kelvin tried to get rid of an earlier version of her, and this appears to cause her to become deeply troubled.

Facsimile-Gibarian appears briefly to Kelvin and tells him that Facsimile-Rheya and Facsimile-Michael are part of Solaris. Facsimile-Gibarian tells Kelvin, "There are no answers, only choices."

Facsimile-Rheya drinks liquid oxygen in what Kelvin interprets as a suicide attempt. However, facsimiles regenerate after that sort of injury, and she quickly stages a complete physical recovery.

Gordon develops the Higgs device, which can be used to bombard a facsimile with special subatomic particles. She says she used the device on the facsimile that was presumably in her room, and she believes that facsimile has been disappeared from the space station and somehow sent back to Solaris.

Facsimile-Rheya tells Kelvin that she came from his memory of human Rheya. She further tells him she doesn't believe they could be happy together on Earth and they won't be happy if they remain on the space station.

Kelvin tries to keep himself awake with pills, but eventually he succumbs to fatigue. Facsimile-Rheya begs Gordon to use the Higgs device on her, and Gordon complies. Before Facsimile-Rheya disappears from the space station, we see her with Facsimile-Michael, who appears to be talking to her and pointing toward something (Solaris?) in the distance.

The mass of Solaris begins to grow rapidly, and the planet's increased gravitational pull starts pulling the space station down. Gordon and Kelvin put on space suits, and Gordon goes into the shuttle and prepares for launch. But Kelvin remains outside the shuttle's entrance. He chooses to remain on the space station and watches as Gordon leaves in the shuttle, bound for Earth.

The space station hurtles toward Solaris. Facsimile-Michael holds his hand out to Kelvin, Solaris' way of indicating to Kelvin that it is prepared to create a facsimile of him if he is willing. Kelvin indicates his acceptance by grasping Facsimile-Michael's hand. Presumably, the human Kelvin is killed as a result of the station's descent toward the planet, but before that happens, Solaris creates Facsimile-Kelvin.

In voice-over, Facsimile-Kelvin says he has returned to Earth, where he masquerades as a human. But it seems to me we're observing his existence in some alternate reality, and that alternate reality has been created by Solaris. We see Facsimile-Kelvin moving about in what looks like the same city that human Kelvin used to live in. We even see Facsimile-Kelvin inside what looks like the same apartment human Kelvin used to live in, except now there's a photo of some version of Rheya attached to the refrigerator—a photo that wasn't there in human Kelvin's apartment. We know we're observing Facsimile-Kelvin, rather than human Kelvin, because when he cuts his finger, it heals by itself within seconds.

Some version of Facsimile-Rheya appears to Facsimile-Kelvin and tells him that they needn't be concerned about whether they are alive or dead. She declares that they are together now, and everything they've done is forgiven. The last image in the film is of Solaris.

~ Ivana Redwine

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