Simply Powerful

Rating: 9/10 (12 March 2014)

Gravity is a film about an astronaut who needs to get back to Earth. It is also a story about a woman who needs to get back her own life.
What I love about Gravity is its bracing simplicity. Get your hero up a tree. Throw rocks at him. Let him get himself down. That's the plot proverb at work here. Get Sandra Bullock up in space. Throw space debris and fire at her. Let her get herself back to Earth – with a little help from George Clooney, of course.
The film's pure and uninterrupted structure gives it power and allows Sandra Bullock as Dr Ryan Stone to dominate our emotions for 89-90 minutes.
The film doesn't only operate as a thrilling actioner. There's a quiet symbolism of birth – or rather emotional rebirth – in the umbilical tether between Stone and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and in the beautiful image of Stone rotating in a near-foetal position inside the International Space Station. Comparisons to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey come to mind. And of course, I saw a strong influence from the character of Ripley in Alien in Dr Ryan Stone.
The opening shot – a single and unbroken 12-minute shot – is also a directing feat. It's amazing to think they whole thing was blue-screened.