You just point the damned thing at Earth. It's not rocket science.

Rating: 8/10 (17 August 2015)

The major advantage of having much of Gravity being digitally rendered digitally are those gorgeous and frightening long takes, none more impressive than the 17 minute unbroken opening shot. The camera moves with such a deliberate stillness and calming influence reminiscent of 2001, the inflated average shot length unveiling the world of outer space with ease and beauty and a sense of real time. That last element is very crucial in building tension in the foreground of the gorgeous Blue Marble that occupies much of the background in the 90 minutes. Cuarón never relents, whether it's a gracefully silent and serene shot of Stone in a fetal position symbolising a baby in the womb, umbilical cord and all, or through the chaotic barrage of space debris. Lubezki's camera movement is never needlessly dizzying or disorientating, somewhere that many films falter, and that makes it all the more panicked when Price's foreboding and dominant score chimes in. The lack of the necessity to cut is used by Cuarón sparingly and to great effect; midway after surviving the first barrage, Stone discovers the lack of fuel stores in the Soyuz and starts cursing and hitting out in anger, before a well placed cut immediately silences her screams and the score and starts a slow zoom out, re-contextualising the claustrophobia of the spacesuit and the small space-pod within the vast endless swathes of space.
Of course it wouldn't be all possible to empathise without the wonderfully fragile performance of Sandra Bullock. Clooney plays the senior astronaut, the assured and confident voice in the chaos who tries to calm Stone and keep her focused even as all hope seems lost. It's a familiar role for Clooney and he plays it well, perhaps with a little too much ease for one in such a perilous situation, but anyhow Bullock is the stand out here. Her endless little monologue to herself is quiet yet spirited, never feeling like forced exposition. There's great emotion from a thin back-story; my favourite scene of the film involves her quiet contemplation of her imminent death, picking up a tiny strand of humanity through the radio. She finds the non English speaking Aningaaq, and they communicate with the only mutual sound they can, the soft howls of dogs, and find a brief connection via the cry of
There are a few tiny little bumps along the teleological narrative that slightly hurt the overall film. Price's score is imposing and the electronic pulses add much intensity to the silent wastelands of outer space, but are bombastic at times, most notably just before the climatic descent and right after Stone finally reaches land and stands upright for the first time in the film. It's slightly overwhelming and guilty of exaggerating the danger of the scenes at times, although these moments can be papered over unlike in other cases (Interstellar comes to mind). Of course there's also the myriad of plot holes and scientific inaccuracies I'm sure that many fellow IMDb users have listed and complained about endlessly, but those should and must be brushed aside in a film like Gravity. It's a growing symptom of modern film criticism to be easily inclined to refuse to suspend our disbelief and be outraged at a piece of non fiction's lack of complete logically coherence. Despite ourselves living in such a world where people panic and make mistakes, although few will have been in the situation of Stone's.
I've been told that Gravity is a magnificent film to watch on the big screen, and even more of a marvel in 3D. Unfortunately I probably won't ever experience that sort of wonder (3D makes me dizzy) but even on a small screen Cuarón pulls off a spectacle. Despite being 90 minutes long and focused exclusively on a single, linear storyline, it never drags or rushes and paces itself evenly. Gravity is a film simultaneously taunt with both terror and beauty, never relenting on its chaos and frenzy.