2 out of 5

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Gravity is, undeniably, a technical masterpiece.  Every shot, and moment, and beat, feels purposeful, and for what essentially boils down to a 2-person film on a backdrop of a couple satellites and otherwise black, starry space, Cuarón does an excellent job of keeping interesting focal points in frame and spacing events out over the course of 90 minutes such that I was never bored.

Also, I feel I had an open mind going into this, along with honest expectations.  I didn’t see Children of Men, and maybe sorta felt that despite the praise that the plot sounded way too obvious to be the smart sci-fi flick the world seemed to claim it was… but plots on paper can be whipped into shape on screen, and I sensed it to be visually accomplished, which was a bigger focus in ‘Gravity…’ so in an odd backwards way, that boded well.  The reviews I read ahead of time were positive, but fairly so – like I didn’t feel like they were just jumping on a hype bandwagon and glossing over flaws.  And I accepted that it was going to be focused on Sandra Bullock’s emotional evolution; space horror or psychological thriller this was not.

But separate from the admitted skill of the composition – the supposed nigh-complete green-screening of every element was undetectable to me – and the convincing acting of its leads selling the panicked science specialist played by Bullock and the seasoned space vet played Clooney – looking at the final product – several aspects completely took me out of the film and the ’emotional evolution’ felt like it was scripted by someone in a creative writing course, or by an Oprah mom after finishing ‘The Secret.’  In other words – tragically pedant.  The technical conversations were interesting, as, funneled through a sort of reminder / re-training for Bullock’s Ryan Stone, they put all those flashing lights and buttons into a human-understandable context, and Clooney’s banter with Houston was naturalistic.  It’s the life-affirming nonsense that rubbed me the wrong way.  As my fellow viewer friend responded to my complaint, there’s really not much dialogue… but that’s exactly my point, then, as what there is is so stupidly cliché that I’m curious why it needed to be included at all.  Compound this with ridiculously obvious visual symbolism and you get a film that starts feeling like style over substance.  ‘Life is great’ films are not my favorite genre, sure, but I’ve had good experiences with a handful.  Without a flick-by-flick breakdown, I think it boils down to those select films understanding what they are.  The concept is not new or original.  But ‘Gravity’ wants to dress it up like the most important, shocking revelation there is.  And it’s purpose is telegraphed within the first twenty minutes or so, with Stone admitting to an empty life back on Earth and Clooney waxing on about how beautiful the sunrise is…  Yeah man, I feel ya.  Buddha’s great and all that.  Fuck off.

So my dander’s up there.  Let’s head back and look at the movie, yes?  I said it’s not boring.  It’s not.  The 3D is a bit silly, as 3D always is – Cuarón finds striking contrasts with his white shuttles / white astronaut suits and the inky darkness and yes, the extra ‘dimension’ helps add depth, and when the our characters are careening around the screen its pretty thrilling stuff.  But elsewhere we get the typical items floating toward us gag that I guess you could say is just a consequence of doing it 3D, but can’t help but feel like a purposeful gimmick all the same.  There’s no win there.  I remain unsold.  But still – not boring.  Stone gets stranded in space after her station is fileted by satellite shrapnel, and then it’s 70 minutes of frustrations and disasters as she tries to get back home.  Yet for each of these thrilling moments, there are shots that linger without much affect.  Plus, every off-center frame is a dead giveaway that something’s about to happen, and that prevented me from getting to hyped at any given moment.  Also preventing me: the god damned music.  Another fellow viewer friend had read an article in which Cuarón mentioned he’d wanted to do the movie w/o sound for accuracy, but made concessions to make it more palatable.  The mixture of ambiance and orchestral wandering that make up the score are wonderful… outside of their application.  Because along with our off-center framing, we also get music stings starting a mile off, another warning bell or drama to come.  And don’t get me started on the fucking African chants at the end.

Lastly of my complaints, woot woot: editing.  Cuarón masterfully uses long, seemingly-single shot takes (that certainly involved some trickery, but they look good) for a good portion of his film.  Some of the transitions to another shot – in-scene, between scenes – are organic, but many of them are jarring, skipping over little moments that would have / wouldn’t have just as much impact as any of the other moments in the long, lingering shot.  Yes, it was wise to trim this to 90 minutes, but the nature in which its cut kept making me question why Cuarón was doing these long takes except that they looked cool.  Another style over substance nudge.

And so there it all is.  Incredibly simple, heart-warming pap wrapped up in heavy-handed visual ‘metaphors’ that uses several tools in its arsenal to prevent total immersion into the flick.  There is a movie that did this well, and did it well without words – Cast Away.  For all the talk of ‘Gravity’s minimalism, I feel it actually could’ve been strengthened by doing a little less – a little less long-shot grandiosity, a little less talk, a little less music.  But the moments that are intended to thrill do do so, and are worth seeing on a big screen, which is a rare feat nowadays.