Technically a masterpiece but ultimately a trite story

Rating: 7/10 (13 March 2014)

'Gravity; scores 7 out of 10 purely because cinematically it is such an extraordinary experience. Cuaron and the SFX houses that created the film fully deserve the enormous praise that has been heaped upon them and the slew of awards the film has received are generally well-deserved. It is also worth pointing out that as a 3D experience this film must rank as one of the most successful - I cannot think of an example of a film that has gained more from the use of 3D effects. All this being said, the narrative itself is ultimately a great disappointment. The central plot line about characters trying to survive in apparently impossible circumstances is fine in itself and the action is all very gripping and at times pretty terrifying. The real problems begin to emerge in the last third of the film. Once again we are landed with a wave of Hollywood clichés in terms of character motivation and narrative resolution. Bullock's character is ultimately defined through her role as a grieving mother and as such becomes yet one more example of mainstream cinema's inability to understand women outside traditional domestic and maternal roles. The 'lost child' subplot also leads to the film veering into an only too familiar mawkishness in its final stages - when we should be dealing with interesting themes and action instead we begin to wallow in sentimental clichés that never develop into anything meaningful. This is especially frustrating given that up to this point the film feels like it is beginning to develop a really interesting discussion about death and how we choose to confront our own mortality and insignificance. Sadly the film ultimately does not have the courage of its convictions and we end with a cop-out happy ending in which our bereaved astronaut makes it back to earth, emerging from her womblike spacecraft a woman reborn, shot in low angle and backlit by the sun like some reimagined scene from 'Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman'. In a moment everything that seemed interesting about the film is lost in ludicrously over-played and clichéd imagery and the audience is left with a bad taste in its mouth. Frankly it would have been far better if the film had killed off the character and really confronted death as an inevitable and universal human experience. All this set aside, this is still a film I would strongly recommend - the first two thirds are breathtaking in visual terms - just don't expect much gravity (sorry).