Visually Dazzling Space Adventure Of Woman Astronaut's Desperate Struggle To Stay Alive

Rating: 7/10 (10 March 2014)

Dr Ryan Stone is on a spacewalk to repair a prototype scanner on the International Space Station when the orbiting debris from a destroyed satellite smashes into her shuttle and throws her into space. She is rescued by mission commander Matt Kowalski, but stranded outside, with little oxygen, how will they make it back to safety ?
I have this vague conceptual notion of pure cinema, which is based around the idea of telling a story via film which couldn't be told better in any other form, but also where the techniques of cinema - direction, photography, editing, music - come together to create a unique harmonious whole. As a piece of work, Gravity is such a film, with breathtaking sequences, fantastic visuals, delicious suspense, marvellous direction and extraordinary imagination. It starts with an uninterrupted thirteen-minute shot which just by itself is a mini-masterpiece of how to tell a story visually, and rivals any of the great opening shots in cinema (Touch Of Evil, Halloween, Snake Eyes, etc). Cuarón's direction (he also co-wrote, co-produced and co-edited the film) is near faultless; everything in the movie is pared down to the essential - two characters, four locations (if you count space) and a plot which takes place almost in real time. This makes for an incredibly intense experience which never lets go - there is no time to relax until the movie is over. A huge part of the film is the visual effects element, supervised by Tim Webber, which is brilliant in that it is so utterly convincing you soon don't notice it. It's just Sandra Bullock in outer space, and you forget that after about five minutes through the combination of the effects work, the sublime mixing of different elements together (CGI, wire work, props, sound) and her fabulous low-key performance. Some space movies simply don't convince - for example, Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys is a good film and an interesting story but doesn't work for me technically - whilst this approaches the absolute pinnacle of the genre, Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Mexican cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's photography is particularly strong, focusing one minute on a tiny floating teardrop, the next on some vast interplanetary distance, but always showing us what we need to see, moving seamlessly, documenting an environment most of us can only ever know from cinema with incisive accuracy and depth. This, combined with the smooth unhurried editing, creates a truly atmospheric experience of the wonders (and terrors) of life outside Earth's atmosphere. Given all this brilliant creativity, does the movie have any liabilities ? I guess there is one, which just tarnishes it slightly for me, in relation to comparable films like 2010 or Moon. The character drama is very small; we want Dr Stone to live, and we want her to want to live despite the tragedy in her past, but with nobody to react against and no time for anything other than survival, where is the emotional gravitas of the title ? Bullock is wonderful nonetheless, not least for taking what must have been a painful and thankless acting job and turning it into a truly modern icon of sci-fi cinema. My nerdy adolescent fanboy heart will always belong to Warrant Officer Ripley in Alien, but Dr Stone will grow on me. Amazingly, this was a recent seven-time Oscar winner (Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing) - wow, what happened there ? A science-fiction movie gaining artistic recognition ? What's next - a remake of Dark Star for Best Picture ? My cynicism aside however, this a tour-de-force for gifted Mexican director Cuarón and an absolute must-see for all fans of genre cinema. Trivia - did you recognise the voice of the inimitable Ed Harris (from Apollo 13) as the mission controller ?