Gattaca shows eugenics has been so vilified that the audience will root for a character who selfishly commits fraud, risking lives and scientific progress for his own vanity.
The really scary fact is that there would be no need for a police state and segregation. The genetically enhanced would just completely dominate an open and fair competition.
In the movie, either the genetic augmentation didn't work (as well) as expected, or their advantage caused the augmented people to become lazy because they got covered in undeserved status no matter how little or much they worked, as everything depended on which genes they have been "bred" for. Then someone with supposedly bad genes could run circles around them just by working hard.
Maybe some mixture, e.g. in order to protect those kids who fail at the task they have been "bred" for from considering themselves failed humans, gattaca's society adopted this model where they shower all kids in status who have the right genes. Maybe it's not the kids who are being protected but the companies selling the augmentations.
