A great film about overcoming terrible odds

Rating: 9/10 (19 May 2014)

Wow, there are a lot of bad reviews on this movie around here, most of them disappointed for the lack of absolute realism. My, what strange expectations you kids seem to have. I've never seen a scientifically perfect sci-fi film, and if you can't let some of it slide in favor of a little Movie Physics, then the problem is yours. It's not a documentary, it's a story.
What I knew of this movie was that it got great reviews by a lot of people after its release, and it was set in space with excellent graphics. Accurate on both counts. It kicks off without any background stuff, characterization and lead-in minimal. The entire thing, start to finish, is focused on the trials of Sandra Bullock, which for once she's not so annoying, mostly because she has to spend most of the film reacting to her environment, which is quickly falling apart.
The entire thing is about overcoming in a harsh place, which might have just hit the spot for me when I watched it. The dialogue was not elegant but worked anyway; the characters could have been essentially mute and I still would have enjoyed it. There's no good guys versus bad guys, no subplots, really minimal garbage to clutter up what's going on. The lapse into religion and odd symbolism are there, all of it representative of scarred people struggling for safety; the fetal position thing was, I think, somewhat misinterpreted as rebirth, which would have been a strange metaphor given where this was in the plot. None of this is terribly intrusive, although it is certainly nothing special. But it's easy enough to let it pass.
But then there are the graphics. My TV is not an advanced piece of machinery, but it didn't matter, because the real treat of these graphics is how they pull you into the situation. Cuaron knows how to use the perspective of the camera lens, and you feel every body impact as Bullock gets thrown onto every man-made piece of hardware in orbit. Sandra hits all the right emotional notes without extensive exposition; you can feel how she feels and you know that, in her position, you would probably be ready to quit, like she often seems to be. It's fine acting and, if you aren't nitpicking the science or probabilities of what you see, harrowing stuff. Great film if you want to root for someone against the odds, and everyone likes doing that. Watch it, and let that which does not matter slide.