I stay until the end credits of every film I see, whether or not Nick Fury is going to show up. Last night I discovered that I had inadvertently watched Gravity with at least some of the visual effects team. As their names came up they broke into cheers and whoops, and phones flashed because they kept taking picture of their names. That was when I started crying.
I mostly kept it together. I don’t think anyone realized I was crying, but I spent a large portion of Gravity holding my breath, clenching my muscles, pushing back into the seat to try to escape, and the whole film created such an emotional tension that to hear them cheering for each other, and then to see other audience members applaud them as they realized who they were, sort of put a crack in the dam.
And by the way, they deserved every whoop, and every award they will surely get. Gravity is extraordinary. To say that it’s terrifying or visceral or any of those things would do it a disservice. Gravity’s director, Alfonso Cuarón, already created two of the most tension-filled movie moments I can remember in 2006’s Children of Men. The first, when the main characters’ truck is ambushed, is a masterpiece of POV-shots, chaos, and claustrophobia. The second and even more affecting moment comes toward the end, when an entire platoon of soldiers stops fighting (if only momentarily) in the face of a miraculous event. These two scenes anchored the rest of the film, helping us to understand what was truly at stake in a world where humans were slowly going extinct. In Gravity, Cuarón places us in an impossible-to-imagine environment and ratchets up the danger, forcing us to live there for an almost unendurable amount of time.
Is it a horror film? It’s certainly the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. Is it uplifting? Fuck yeah. Is it a celebration of human ingenuity that I mentioned I requested in our fall preview yesterday? …Not so much. Everyone in this film uses their brainmeats (and the film definitely expects its audience to keep up) but the thing about this that makes it horrific (and this is clear from the first moments of the film, so I’m not spoiling anything) is that space simply is. It is implacable. It is unfeeling. There is just you, the suit, and the nothingness outside of a very thin wall of fabric and polycarbonate.
Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a medical engineer on her first space mission, fixing equipment for the International Space Station. Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) is a veteran astronaut trying to maximize his spacewalking time.
The brilliant thing is the way Cuarón uses the action to tell an emotional story. Dr. Stone has a lesson to learn, and she embodies that learning process. Every time a hand grasps a rail, or a helmet snaps into place, you feel the effort behind it. Everything is difficult for Stone, each new aspect of being an astronaut is a challenge, and she has to make minute-to-minute decisions about whether those challenges are even worth it, or if giving up is the better option. Sandra Bullock is fantastic as Stone, a fully-formed female character with a history that plays itself out in her present, a career that she loves enough to risk going into space, and a wonderful mix of stark vulnerability and odd flashes of humor that make her fear all the more harrowing.
There’s very little else that I can say without getting into spoiler-infested waters, so I’ll sum up: You should see this film. You should definitely see it in a theater, with people whom you can trust to share an experience, without needing to talk the second the credits roll up. I’m also surprising myself by recommending that people see it in IMAX 3D. I’m not usually a fan of 3D, but Cuarón uses it as instrument of empathy: you’re in Stone’s spacesuit with her, inside the helmet, watching the glass fog up, trying to orient yourself as Earth and stars spin and there is nothing to hold onto. Nothing to stop your momentum. Your heart is beating, and you can hear yourself trying to breathe.
Leah Schnelbach has decided she’s only going into space if there are porcine Muppets involved. You can see her on Twitter occasionally.
I walked out of the theater knowing how great a movie I had seen, but the extent of its impact on me didn’t become clear until I asked my friends whether I’d talked to either of them while the movie was happening. I hadn’t. I can’t remember the last time I watched an entire movie without commenting once.
Everyone should see this movie.
#1 is why i don’t go to the theaters and wait for dvd release. No talking during the movie.
This is the first review I’ve read of this movie, which I had not yet heard much about, and now I am super-excited to see it. Thank you!
Every review I’ve seen so far has recommended the 3-d version. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. Guess I know what I’ll be doing tonight.
I plan to see this movie. Partly because every review I’ve seen can basically be summed up as ‘wow!!!!’
But also because my father, at our last sunday dinner, said ‘You want to go see Gravity with me?’. Keep in mind that my (space-crazy) father doesn’t go to see movies in the theatre. The last time we went to see a movie was… Apollo 13. So it could be the worst movie around; I would still go, because my father asked.
I found this movie to be incredible.
I didn’t find it scary, per se. This might just be ‘young man stupidity’, but everyone dies eventually, and dying in space seems like a better death than many others. It’s an achievement. I find it a huge contrast to how for instance, Ryan’s daughter died; if you can die from a fall, why worry about dying in space? Thousands of years of human achievement, to put you up there. It’s a risk I’m willing to take. Far better risk than a car accident or heart disease.
Not saying I have a death wish or anything! Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to die horribly, but I found the environment and physics wondrous. Then again, I have gone scuba diving, so I’m used to another environment that doesn’t stick to the rules I grew up in.
(Man, I sound like a crazy person.)
The only negative comment i have hears is that it can be disorienting to some due to the visuals. That is how good they are. So those who if you even see a boat get sea sickness might want to pop a pepto before viewing it in 3-d. If it can make you feel like that and it not be due to someone trying to gross you out, but rather over how space must feel to the characters, then there must be something to this movie.
“Is it a celebration of human ingenuity that I mentioned I requested in our fall preview yesterday? …Not so much.”
Trying not to spoiler anything for those that haven’t seen, but I’d say the final shot of the movie pretty much encapsulates human progress (in the vein of 2001).
Sorry, just can’t get past the casting of Bullock and Clooney. Pass.
This might be Bullock’s best performance ever. It’s such a nuanced performance, and one we’ve only seen in glimpses in other roles. She is so fragile, yet strong in this. Clooney is Clooney, but it’s a good father figure type role.
The effects are amazing and I recommend 3-D (and I NEVER recommend 3-D).