Plot
Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a mission specialist on her first space flight aboard the Explorer to service the Hubble telescope. Along with Lieutenant Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) – a veteran astronaut and commander of the mission – she is sent spiraling into danger when high-speed satellite debris shreds the Explorer, forcing the two of them into a desperate race for survival.
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| Space, not the place for back flips |
Review
Sci-fi gets an awful lot of stick for being, well…sci-fi. The domain of the geek. A genre full of lasers, gobbledygook jargon, incomprehensible stories, ludicrous plots and too liberal a use of the phrase ‘science fiction’ as an excuse for everything. Midichlorians? C’mooooon.
But what happens when you ground sci-fi in cold reality? Not quite fact – as Niel Degrasse ‘Pluto isn’t a planet’ Tyson has delighted in pointing out – but in the real world, with real people in a (mostly) realistic environment?
The result is Gravity. And it is truly glorious.
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| Terrifying and splendiferous, like Helena Bonham Carter. |
Visuals are the dish of the day with Gravity, and a review can’t do them justice. Transcendental? The shots of Earth, it’s cityscapes, mountain ranges, the transition from day to night and the gentle rising of the sun; Earth seems almost lonely, for all it’s arrogant size and scope, lost in the depths of space. It’s beautiful beyond description, frightening in equal measure. You are Dr. Stone, and the conflation between awe-inspiring splendor and gut-wrenching fear is all too real.
Can anything be truly beautiful in the face of impending doom, where the Earth despite it’s size is so very far away, where your only company are your regrets, fears and freezing breath? You’re damn right it can. All it takes is a small reminder of home – a memory or a dog barking – and immersion in total, terrifying, utopia.
Technically speaking, Gravity is a marvel. How it was shot (Gravity is part of that rare enough club: ‘delayed because the technology didn’t exist yet’) will be subject of many a documentary but one thing’s for certain: director Alfonso Cuaron is a wizard with a camera. There’s a gorgeous homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Star Child around the midwaymark; the floating beaten body of Dr. Stone stripped to her underclothes, framed by a halo of sunlight. In a single move Cuaron crafts a poetic image while acknowledging one of his film’s greatest inspirations; the visual and sound design parallels with Kubrik’s sci-fi masterpiece can only be intentional.
The 3D is comparable only to the granddaddy of the medium, Avatar. If immersion is what you're after, immersion in a world (our world) and a character, then Gravity is a rare acknowledgement of that increasingly saturated adage ‘better in 3D.’ It’s a superficial thing, naturally, but implemented with such care and skill that it transcends simplistic sensual boundaries.
Plaudits to the music too, which in itself is a microcosm for everything that Gravity does so well. Equal parts hauntingly beautiful, bombastic and exciting, it perhaps best excels in its restraint; silence is music here for the most part. Terrible total silence.
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| Formula 1 has changed, man. |
The entire production, from monstrously long opening shot to the credits, is spent in almost discomforting intimacy with Sandra Bullock’s Dr. Stone. She’s a tragic figure, who sees the abyssal infinitude of space as an escape from the true darkness of her home life, and Bullock’s performance is frequently shattering. Dialogue – or monologue as the case often is – can flop on occasion, forced too far down the route of exposition, but Bullock pulls it off. Her shock and terror is palpable – understandable! - in the face of mounting chaos, and the sound of her labored breathing, the frequent point-of-view shots, are constant reminder of the insurmountable peril of space (which the introductory flash cards delight in unerring you with).
It makes for breathless viewing, almost cruel in it’s dogged attack on the senses, ramping up the stakes with each increasingly tense set-piece. Gravityis the Kessler effect come real and yeah, the science may not be perfect, but so far as uncensored cinematic entertainment goes, well…Gravity NEEDS to be watched on the big screen.
Let’s be honest here, Gravity tells a relatively one-dimensional story (there’s a big problem, survive it) in a simplistic linear fashion with frequently mediocre dialogue. Of the two actual characters, one is exclusively a foil, who doesn’t even begin to develop or change in any meaningful way.
But then again, he doesn’t need to.
Gravity is a masterful, meticulous production; its 90-minute run-time (a clever diegetic threat) is as toned as an athlete. As disappointing as Matt’s lack of development may be on a macro scale, the simple fact is that he doesn’t need to. It doesn’t make sense for him to. Dialogue may not be great – though Matt’s stories and cocksure attitude do raise a smile – but it’s serviceable in the expression of what, despite the fantastic visuals and highbrow high-stakes setting, is in fact a devastatingly humanstory.
In going to the one place that guarantees the end of biological life, where every branch and rule and assumption of society is cosmically redundant, Gravity explores what truly makes us human.
In the end, the title is the punch line to world’s cruelest practical joke. And it’s perfect.
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| She kept asking, he kept refusing: space is no place for arm wrestles. |
Verdict
Gravity gave me shivers. It nearly brought a tear to my eye. And most importantly, it made me smile like a great big stonking idiot.
6/5
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