A Feast for the Eyes from a Visionary Director

Rating: 10/10 (1 October 2013)

Seven years is too long of a wait for a director to bring out his latest film. That is the case with director Alfonso Cuarón. His most recent outing, Children of Men, came out in 2006. But to this movie fan, it was well worth the wait.
Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is on her first space shuttle mission. She is accompanied by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), who is on his last mission. While in space, the astronauts find out about debris being through space destroying anything in its way. The mission is aborted, leaving the shuttle destroyed, and the astronauts stranded in space. While Stone is stranded and freaked out, Kowalski comes to her as they only have 90 minutes until the debris returns around the earth. The two keep trying to contact Mission Control in Houston to no avail. They make it back to the shuttle, to find the remaining crew dead and the shuttle damaged beyond repair. There is a nearby Soyuz that they can make it to nearby. However, that is also damaged beyond repair and the ship used to take astronauts home is also gone. They end up at the International Space Station, thanks to Kowalski's thruster. However, his momentum is pulling them both away. But Kowalski's confidence assures her that she can fly the damaged Soyuz module to a nearby Chinese space station with a landing module based on how the Soyuz is designed.
This is a very powerful film with a great story, thanks to the many efforts of visionary director Alfonso Cuarón. His direction keeps the story exciting, entertaining, and makes us wonder what will happen next. The story is simple, yet effective. Cuarón proves that less is more. He does a nice job of combining story and structure. He does some excellent and creative work with the camera and showing us very nice shots of what is happening. Cuarón wrote the screenplay with his son Jonás Cuarón. Together, they wrote a simple script, but show that you don't need a lot of words to make an effective script.
Sandra Bullock gives the best performance of her career at the front and center of this film. She does excellent at showing the many emotions of Dr. Ryan Stone. She does a great job at being the newbie who is freaked out, but able to get calm and rely on what she knows and what she can do in order to make it back to Earth safely. As an audience, we feel sympathy for Stone and want her make it back. Bullock shows her will and desire, and more importantly her perseverance as Stone. George Clooney is fun and entertaining in his role as Matt Kowalski. Clooney brings his confidence and zaniness to the role. With this performance, Clooney shows us a guy who knows his stuff and can keep calm in a tough situation.
With this story, there are many great technical aspects. The big standout are the visual effects. The visual effects team in this film make us as an audience feel like we are in space with Stone and Kowalski. They also do a very nice job with the efficiency of little things floating in space, and not overdoing with the debris flying. Alfonso Cuarón's longtime director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki does some very beautiful work with the camera, especially with the pans in the continuous shots. Cuarón also edited this, which he collaborated with Mark Sanger. Together, they did a very efficient and compelling job of cutting when necessary and showing us what is important to see in this story. The sound design is also very effective and does a great job at putting together the dialogue of the actors, and hearing the noises of the space stations, and powerful when debris crashes. The other big technical standout is the loud and moving music by composer Steven Price. His score is effective at knowing when things are calm and when trouble is imminent.