Novel approach to the 'stranded in space' genre, unlike anything you've seen before

Rating: 10/10 (28 May 2014)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Ryan (Sandra Bullock) and Matt (George Clooney) are two astronauts, working on a space station, whilst trying to juggle their respective emotional baggage. All is going smoothly, only for a big disaster to strike and the pair finding themselves desperately trying to get to safety. When Ryan finds herself stranded on her own, as the less experienced explorer, she must use all her wits in a desperate struggle for survival.
Alfonso Cuaron's short, critically acclaimed space drama plunges us straight in to the action from the start, slowing closing in on our two main characters, who we are forced to make a connection with on the basis of some piecemeal small talk as they go about their business, with the famous performers playing them relying on their assured, seasoned on screen personas that they've each developed over many years, with Clooney's smooth talking, wise cracking man's man approach, coupled with Bullock's hard ass, cynical girl in a man's world thing. Shortly after we feel all settled in, the realization slowly dawns on the characters and the audience that something's wrong, and the tension sets in, and we feel as though we are in with these people as they are forced to rely on their instinctive human ingenuity to survive.
Interjected between the various seat edge moments, our heroes are left merely to wonder aimlessly, but as they do, they (and we) are witness to some truly breath taking cinematography, of the vast spacial glacier and the outstanding, grand space station, leaving the wow factor on more than one level. At some point, Bullock becomes stranded from her companion, and forced to survive on her own, as the tension and the stakes start to rise that little bit higher. Somehow, in the space of under an hour and a half, you are left feeling as though your senses have been taken on a visceral, mind bending ride, where by the end it's become genuinely nerve wracking as to whether she'll survive, even though inside we're pretty sure.
Alfonso Cuaron has crafted an original, novel picture, that takes a well trodden format but delivers it in a way that you really haven't seen before. Clooney and Bullock are an effective double act, even when they're not actually on screen together, and it deserved to win the awards and get the acclaim it did. *****