Nice try, but sublimely overrated

Rating: 5/10 (12 October 2015)

Take a compelling concept, a fairly convincing representation of things that can go wrong in outer space, a first-rate lead and noted director and you get Gravity, arguably the most overrated film of 2013.
The film opens with some astronauts, including Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, doing some repairs in outer space. When a shower of space debris leaves two of them adrift and the rest dead, they must try to make their way to a close by space station against the odds and in the inhospitable environment of space.
I enjoy good science fiction and with the reviews and pedigree on this film, I really wanted to love it. And there are certainly some very good things it has going. Its convincing visual splendor for one. It also hammers home the constant danger of space travel and will undoubtedly cure anyone with fantasies of such to think twice.
Additionally, it features a truly marvelous central performance by Bullock. Because Bullock is known notably for comedies, it often takes people by surprise when she turns up in a straight dramatic role and hits a home run, but despite some career missteps Bullock is a reliable actress. She makes her character here sympathetic, intelligent and gutsy even when quivering with fear, and even manages to gloss over some of the story's annoying aspects regarding her character. By contrast, Clooney is on screen so little and basically plays himself that it seems pointless to even judge his performance.
The film sports a brief running time, but feels like its double. The first time chaos hits and we get a diversity of vertigo inducing shots of gloved hands desperately reaching out to grab hold of flimsy objects to prevent them reeling off into the void of space, it is disorienting and scary. Unfortunately, the film repeats this same theme over and over and over again. A character will reach the next safe haven, only to have the debris shower show up again and force them to vacate for yet another safe haven, complete with lots of grunting and desperate grabs for flimsy pieces of metal. It gets old pretty quickly.
While director Alfonso Cuaron has successfully created an outer space that is intimidating, he is far less adept at choreographing what happens in that background. By the time our central character is on her third failing haven and must again escape while disaster erupts around her, you have seen the steps so often that they no longer hold much suspense. In fact, the film becomes ever more ponderous with each repetitive set-up.
As intelligent and courageous as Bullock's character is, she is still stuck with a rather familiar and irritating back story. We find out during the course of the film, that her father wanted a boy, she was a single mother and her daughter is dead from an accident. The film distributes these tidbits from the character in such a way that its veiled implication seems that if she does not safely make a return to earth, at least she is only a scientist without a family. Her character even grudgingly seems to imply such a thing herself at one point. It is pretty annoying to hear such bilge come out of a character's mouth and one could be sure that they would never have written lines for a male star - like Clooney - in such a way. The fact that they were likable and in such dire straits should be enough to wish them to escape, but positing a position where one laments that she failed as a wife and mother (and was a disappointment to her dad), so maybe her not being saved would be alright.
The worst decision is one that sacrifices what realism the film has in a sequence that stops the film dead and removes the viewer completely from it. At the two-thirds point, a "ghost" shows up at an opportune moment to advise Bullock on how to solve a tricky problem. The sequence comes from out of so far left field that jaws will hit the floor. I think filmmakers of this brand of sci-fi really need to address whether they want to be scientifically authentic or whether they want to include faux-theological overtones and affirmations of spirituality sops to be thrown to the faithful, but they cannot do both and maintain an undisturbed air of science fact. The film never really recovers from this segment, which reminds us in no uncertain terms that we are watching "only a movie".