Gravity is a big budget ($100 million +) 3D movie about,
umm, well let me come back to that later.
Gravity stars Sandra Bullock as a supposedly brilliant medical
scientist, on a space shuttle mission that goes awry. The film also stars George Clooney as a
seasoned astronaut. Clooney is the mission commander, and philosophical mentor
for Bullock’s character; but his is a supporting role. It is the journey of astronaut
Ryan Stone (Bullock’s character), which is supposed to interest us.
The real stars of Gravity are the special effects people
working with director Alfonso
Cuarón (Children of Men, Y Tu Mamá También, Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban)
and his long-time collaborator and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezky (The Tree
of Life, Like Water For Chocolate). From
the first frame of the movie, they immerse us in a vertiginously real world of
silent, weightless, beautiful Space. To be sure that we notice, Clooney’s
character superfluously points out the lovely view on multiple occasions.
Eventually, the plot turns and the FX department thrills us with the obverse
experience: a white-knuckle adventure in Terrifying Space.
So, what’s it about? First and foremost it’s about a
cinematic thrill ride, and on that level Gravity
I was reading an article about the science of this movie,
and the consensus was that the main thing the filmmakers got right was “the incredible
view.” On the other hand, lots of the
rest was just not credible from a science or physics perspective; and even to a
non-scientist like myself this detracts.
Scientific accuracy aside, one senses that Cuarón (and co-writer Jonás Cuarón, his son) intended something
deeper and more meaningful here than exciting scenes of Bullock’s struggle to
survive. The movie’s tagline is “Don’t Let Go,” and I suspect they wanted to leave
us with something to think about for awhile after. If so, they did not succeed.
There was no meat on that bone. For me,
anyway, the more I thought about Gravity, the less I liked it.
So Gravity is simply an adventure story about
survival. At the thrill level, this works, because we automatically identify
with a human in peril. But for such a story to resonate more deeply, we need to
feel like we know this particular human and identify with him or her as a
person. The backstory about astronaut Ryan Stone (Bullock) is slight and
kitschy; and although Bullock herself tries mightily to inject some humanity
into the character, she is hampered by her botoxed face and the superficial
script. I really like Sandra Bullock,
but she was miscast here, and I suspect that a stronger screenplay just would
have made her inadequacy more apparent.
Luckily for us, she is much, much better in her other 2013
release: The Heat, recently released on DVD (See my review)
Gravity is currently in general release.
I enjoyed the movie and agree it was gripping, and neither the botox thing nor the scientific errors (which were not apparent to me when I was watching the movie) bothered me much. I view the movie as a relatively straightforward adventure/thriller with an amazing look and feel of being in Space (with a capital S). A friend had an interesting take that did not occur to me, however: she found the movie had a strong spiritual undercurrent, with Clooney being the Christ-like figure sacrificing himself for Bullock, later appearing to her in a dream to guide her. She escaped the fire only to be reborn (born again?) by immersing herself in water, emerging weak and childlike into a new life. I think it’s a bit of a stretch (she was weak from having been in a zero-gravity environment, I think) but the one scene in which she, wearing not much, is in a fetal position floating and rotating in the capsule did remind me of an embryo in the womb….
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