'I hate space.'

Rating: 10/10 (27 February 2014)

Father and son team Alfonso Cuarón and Jonás Cuarón wrote the screenplay (with assistance from George Clooney) and Alfonso Cuarón directed (with capable assistance from director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki) what is likely to go down in cinematic history as a shining moment of the art of the craft. It manages to tell an impossibly simple story about surviving and not surviving astronauts out in space and makes the emotions so complex that the audience is left speechless. It is a staggering achievement.Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone - tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness. How eventually Stone manipulates the fragments of international spacecraft in her attempt to live is profoundly touching and extraordinarily touching.
Both Bullock and Clooney offer portraits not only of the characters they portray but also the hopes and fears of us all if ever faced with surviving the impossible. This is a film that must be seen to understand and appreciate the little miracle Alfonso Cuarón has created.