One Shot Review: Gravity1 of 1
9.5/10 Director Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity is a big, yawping tour de force of sound, of music (an incredible score by Steven Price), of special effects, and of startling visuals. It's a rousing metaphor for the sacredness of life, its extreme fragility, our privilege to live on this planet, and our penchant to take even the simplest things, the magnetic pull that keeps us grounded, the mere act of breathing, for granted until we have to fight for it.
Sandra Bullock takes one of the nomination slots for Best Actress as Ryan Stone, a scientist along for a ride on the shuttle for a repair job on the Hubble, orbiting the earth. Stone carries with her a well of emotional damage that is as deep and as impenetrable as the atmosphere beneath her.
Her colleagues on the shuttle seem unaware of her scarred past, however, particularly Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), the lead astronaut on the mission who has a fly-boy charm and a disarming directness. He listens to twangy country music that belies his true regard for the magnificent setting and circumstance they are in.
Their repair mission is cut short, however, when a Russian effort to take down one of their own satellites sets off a chain reaction of shrapnel coursing through the stratosphere. During the course of this barrage Stone is severed from the shuttle and set careening out to drift in deep space.
To tell you any more would be unwise.
Suffice it to say that Stone does not spiral out into the black of the cosmos but what does happen are several survival sequences that move this 90 minute film along at a thrilling pace.
Cuaron, who also co-wrote Gravity along with his son Jonas, is not being coy here. His overt, some may even say blunt force visual cues, arrive hard and with little guile. One moment, where Stone is curled in the fetal position with a hose in the background that serves visually as an umbilical cord, struck me as serene and apt, but may be too obvious, too much for those who only want the elect to be in on his analogy. Cuaron doesn't care; he really wants you, and everyone else, to get the point. He also has a sense of humor about it including a brief scene with a frog as a relief valve to what could have been a pretentious finale.
Gravity is also one of the few films this year that not only needs, it deserves, to be seen in IMAX and in 3D. It's that big, it's that momentous, it's that good.
Sandra Bullock takes one of the nomination slots for Best Actress as Ryan Stone, a scientist along for a ride on the shuttle for a repair job on the Hubble, orbiting the earth. Stone carries with her a well of emotional damage that is as deep and as impenetrable as the atmosphere beneath her.
Her colleagues on the shuttle seem unaware of her scarred past, however, particularly Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), the lead astronaut on the mission who has a fly-boy charm and a disarming directness. He listens to twangy country music that belies his true regard for the magnificent setting and circumstance they are in.
Their repair mission is cut short, however, when a Russian effort to take down one of their own satellites sets off a chain reaction of shrapnel coursing through the stratosphere. During the course of this barrage Stone is severed from the shuttle and set careening out to drift in deep space.
To tell you any more would be unwise.
Suffice it to say that Stone does not spiral out into the black of the cosmos but what does happen are several survival sequences that move this 90 minute film along at a thrilling pace.
Cuaron, who also co-wrote Gravity along with his son Jonas, is not being coy here. His overt, some may even say blunt force visual cues, arrive hard and with little guile. One moment, where Stone is curled in the fetal position with a hose in the background that serves visually as an umbilical cord, struck me as serene and apt, but may be too obvious, too much for those who only want the elect to be in on his analogy. Cuaron doesn't care; he really wants you, and everyone else, to get the point. He also has a sense of humor about it including a brief scene with a frog as a relief valve to what could have been a pretentious finale.
Gravity is also one of the few films this year that not only needs, it deserves, to be seen in IMAX and in 3D. It's that big, it's that momentous, it's that good.
TitlesGravity
CountriesUnited Arab Emirates, Australia, Canada, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, Taiwan, South Africa
© 2013 - Warner Bros. Pictures