Gravity

2013 sci-fi movie

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 17/20; Abbey: 16/20)

Plot: Disaster in space! And how is Sandra Bullock going to survive it when there's no George Clooney around to save the day?

I don't think I have a single issue with this movie visually with the possible exception of a possibly-too-obvious frog that ends up swimming with Sandra Bullock. I might have problems sonically though. I loved a lot of the darkly ambient soundtrack that accompanied this, the sort of music that the space sound effects really blended well with. I don't know--maybe that's actually what space sounds like. I also liked the Hank Williams Jr. stuff because it added an otherworldliness, almost a way of aurally reminding us that these fleshy characters might not belong outside of the Earth's atmosphere. But I kept wondering if more of this movie should have been silent. A lot of what made this visually intense was that so much of the screen, just like the poster up there, was just nothingness. It made the human characters, even ones played by big actors like George Clooney, seem so insignificant. And when Gravity is at its quietest, it's even more effective at making these characters seem small and fragile. After I watched this, I kind of wished it was more complex thematically, that those images of rebirth or evolution--a beautiful shot of a fetal Bullock floating in the womb and the stunning portrayal of evolution with the character crawling from the water and struggling to stand and walk--wouldn't have been so obvious. But then, I realized that I didn't even understand the theme of this. Obviously, this isn't just a metaphor for human evolution. It must be exploring our need to continue to evolve, and I'm not quite sure I can put my finger on what kind of evolution that is. We're in space, pushing ourselves around with jet pack things or fire extinguishers, so it's not intellectual evolution. Is it spiritual? There was a quick shot of a Buddha in there somewhere. Rebirth? Reincarnation? Is the evolution more of an emotional one? Is it saying that human's next evolutionary shift has to be in our ability to connect with other people? Is it more about one person's ability to heal after tragedy, the only way that giving Sandra Bullock a dead daughter makes sense? Anyway, it certainly leaves you with more than enough to think about. As an action movie, it's harrowing. I really wish I would have seen this in a theater, maybe even in 3D so that I could see all that space junk flying right at my grill or see George Clooney floating right in my freakin' lap. That would have been something. Space and those shots of our beautiful planet looked as good as I imagine they can ever look in a movie. I'm not always sure the science is right with a lot of this because I'm kind of a dumb guy, but as a dumb guy, it didn't really matter to me. Even when you knew Sandra Bullock was not going to die during whatever point in the movie because there was far too much movie to go and shots of space without any people floating around would have been really dull, you were still on the edge of your couch, clinching your buttocks or holding your breath. Or holding your buttocks. I did that, too. I'm still not sure about that fire extinguisher, and I'm not sure I liked the message being sent that Bullock needed Clooney's character to come back (sort of) in order for her to survive. I can imagine feminists wanting to pull out their armpit hairs after seeing that. (I can also imagine feminists wanting to pull out their armpit hairs after reading that last sentence about feminists wanting to pull out their armpit hairs. I've figured out that a controversy might get me more readers. It's worth a shot anyway!) I loved Sandra Bullock's work here and can't imagine how difficult this was for her to pull off. I don't always like her in movies, but this performance was perfect. Just check out the long shots in this and how many expressions or movements she had to get perfectly in order for each of these scenes to work. She really does the impossible for a science fiction movie and makes us believe that she's really in space going through all these different emotions. And I imagine this whole thing was physically demanding. I was a little worn out just watching her go through some of these scenes. I was as impressed with Bullock as I was the special effects that put her in space and in peril. I don't know about Clooney though. I do almost always like Clooney, but I'm just not sure he's necessary here. His character's a little too macho, a little too Clooney. I would have preferred seeing somebody who was not George Clooney. I mean, nobody floats away to their eventual death that bravely, do they? For me, Clooney made this too much of a movie that takes place in space whereas the visuals and Bullock's performance worked hard to convince me that this was actually happening.