I think Gattaca is also fascinating for its freshman part in Andrew Niccol's opening "trilogy" as writer (and mostly director). More people remember the sophomo

I think Gattaca is also fascinating for its freshman part in Andrew Niccol's opening "trilogy" as writer (and mostly director). More people remember the sophomore work The Truman Show (in part perhaps because it was the film that Niccol didn't direct), and Simone is mostly forgettable but still worth mentioning in the way it sort of caps the "trilogy". I think that bittersweet hopefulness and a sense of lightness (humor) in the dystopian darkness of that opening "trilogy" is partly what Niccol seems to have lost as his career has progressed from those first three efforts. It's possible to even blame Simone's critical failure for that, he leaned harder into the humor and got burnt at the box office and maybe over-corrected too hard back to even grimmer, more bland, and more action focused movies. Hard to blame someone doing what sells, but interesting to miss the weirdness and also the bittersweet hope of the opening salvo.