Who is Aron Ralston?

Rating: 7/10 (23 April 2014)

127 Hours is the incredible true story of a naive outdoors man/engineer who embarks on a journey into a remote canyon without telling anyone his whereabouts for the weekend. He gets into a terrible accident, leaving his right hand stuck under a boulder and no way out for, as the title implies, 127 hours. As he fights for survival, having to resort to very desperate measures, the viewer catches glimpses of his life - moments that he is fond of and moments that he regrets.
I was unaware that this film was nominated for several Oscars upon my initial viewing, but I'm not too surprised. The cinematography is brilliant which contributes to the way the filming was executed. More than half of the film is spent with Aron Ralston (James Franco) as he struggles to survive in the canyon - yet we never get bored of being there with him in the one scene. The storyline is also unique and the message is inspiring.
However, I did not give this film 10/10. That is simply because although we the audience got to know our protagonist as he struggled to come to grips with his predicament and realize his own flaws in life, I felt that the film was lacking in exploring his character before the accident. The first twenty minutes of the film before the accident occurs was, in my opinion, awkward and rushed. I didn't feel any genuine connection with the character and it seemed like the accident was just waiting to happen to get the film going. I would've preferred to learn more about him as a person just from the movie, although I haven't read the book to be fair so this is simply how it was written.
Great film overall.. but in terms of character development I felt like it could have started off with more and expanded further.