Gravity lacks Gravitas

Rating: 8/10 (13 October 2013)

Alfonso Cuarón is a brilliant technical director, known for peppering his films with impossible shots (like Gravity's epic opening 17 minute tracking shot, his camera seemingly floating lazily in space with his characters). Indeed, the technical achievement in Gravity is glorious, the sumptuous visuals and constantly flowing camera-work giving a visceral sense of what it must be like to be orbiting Earth in zero-g. This is particularly true in 3D, so unless you are prone to motion sickness, I would highly recommend trying to see this in 3D, something I don't normally recommend. Cuarón's handling of the film's pacing is similarly excellent. Any reviewers you read that call this film "boring" have obviously been watching too many video games, or were put off by the lack of hyperactive editing (there are a great many very long free-moving shots in the film), because the film's running time is a very short 91 minutes, and the action begins within the first 5, and doesn't let up until almost the very last frame.
Where the film lacks, is in story. It's a difficult story to manage well on film, because there are only two characters whose faces you see on screen at all, so the entire weight of the film falls squarely upon the shoulders of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, and the believability of their performances. In this regard, the film is in good hands, because regardless of whether or not you like the characters they portray, both actors turn in solid, nuanced, utterly real performances that, especially for Sandra Bullock, are nothing short of jaw-dropping. The real problem with the story in Gravity is that the characters' back-story, some of which is pivotal to the understanding of the film, can only be revealed by the characters themselves (in monologues, essentially), due to the lack of other characters in the film and the disjointed, each-in-their-own-spacesuit nature of their interactions. This leads to some pretty on-the-nose dialogue and exposition, which detracts from an otherwise exhilarating experience.
The only other complaint I have about the film is the score, which swings between silent and overblown far too quickly, and far too often. There are also some fairly significant scientific errors that will annoy the sci-fi crowd, but shouldn't detract from the film for the less scientifically-inclined. Still, this is an intelligent, visually stunning film, a thing of beauty that is very definitely worth a visit to the theatre (especially if you are going to see it in 3D).