A jaw-dropping story about the human spirit and the will to survive

Rating: 8/10 (19 October 2013)

Gravity is a movie about trying to survive an impossible situation, and its filmmakers do something almost as difficult: Create a Hollywood blockbuster that's so original and eye-popping, it causes the collective jaw of jaded moviegoers to drop.
This thriller about two astronauts stranded after a disaster in space is so harrowing, because its visuals are so believable. It's the rare movie where the effects are so convincing; you forget they are effects at all.
In this day and age when every DVD seems to come with a whole batch of behind-the-scenes documentaries, most savvy moviegoers can spot the tricks of the trade and know how most cinematic illusions are achieved. So, it's enormously refreshing to watch a movie that is wall-to-wall special effects and not be able to discern any of its secrets. Director Alfonso Cuaron is known as an innovative filmmaker (any movie buff who has not seen Children of Men needs to stop what they're doing this instant and go see it). With this film, he devised a whole new bag of tricks to get the movie from script to screen. (One hint: Cuaron reportedly dangled the actors from wires inside a cube of LED lights. I can't begin to fathom how that translated into what you see on film – and I'm not sure if I want to know.) The result is a movie that demands to be seen not only in a theater, but in IMAX 3D. Splurge for the more expensive ticket – it's worth it.
As it has often been said, the most spectacular effects are worthless if they're not used to tell a compelling story. Cuaron knows the audience must be invested in the characters. Having two likable stars -- Sandra Bullock and George Clooney -- helps accomplish that aim, as does a script that fleshes out their personae, albeit through some clumsy exposition. Clooney and Bullock are the only actors with speaking parts whose faces appear on screen, but they both have such natural charisma, they are all we really need to see. One other key character is heard but not seen: Ed Harris, in a clever bit of casting, reprises his Apollo 13 role as the voice of mission control. (Apparently, it's a law in Hollywood that you can't make a realistic movie about the space program without the star of The Right Stuff being involved in some way.) The character moments are sprinkled into a story that unfolds at breakneck pace in near real time. At a concise 91 minutes, the movie is perfectly structured and a model of narrative efficiency. Bullock's character barely gets a chance to catch her breath, and neither does the audience.
Gravity is not without it flaws, however. Despite the movie's extremely realistic look, it contains a payload bay's worth of scientific inaccuracies. (Allow me to go all Space Geek on you for a moment.) Beyond the obvious fact the space shuttles are all currently residing in museums and that one of the other spacecraft depicted in the movie does not yet exist – there are other glaring problems. According to this movie, every man made object orbiting the earth is at the same altitude and latitude. (Fact: They're not.) Some basic laws of physics also apparently don't apply in this film's universe. (I could go on, but I won't.) The movie's accurate depiction of spaceflight, though, is less important than its emotional genuineness. It's a story about the human spirit and the will to survive. Bullock's character, a space rookie, was a doctor in her earthbound life and her backstory is a tragic one. For her, venturing to space is a way of escaping her pain. But in facing death, she discovers a newfound desire to live. It's an inspiring portrayal in a movie that is itself an inspiring artistic achievement.