I don't think I've ever before seen a film that actually got me to stop breathing for such along period of time. This truly stands as one of the most exhilarating movies I've seen in a long time, while also keeping some really deep meanings and subtle symbolism to actually make it more than just another technical achievement that will be swept to the side in a decade or two.
The plot is absolutely amazing, and plays with the Murphy's Law principle with ease. The whole movie centers around Sandra Bullock and George Clooney floating through space, but there are surprisingly a lot of different situations that come out of this, and none of them seem out of the realm of possibility. Flowing from "debris destroys spaceship" to "parachute stuck against spaceship" to so many other maddening situations that force Sandra Bullock (our main character as she's the one with the emotional arc we'll get to later) to face the gigantic void despite everything terrible that's happening. Sometimes these plots, ones where it's situation after situation, feel convoluted to try and get the characters in the places it wants to, like 2012 and World War Z were. Gravity is able to move from each scenario with ease, and everything feels natural.So the basic plot, the structure, is really solid, but it's really all in execution for this movie. There needs to be just the right cinematography and editing, Sandra Bullock needs to bark like a dog at one point and needs to sell it as dramatic, George Clooney needs to be funny without becoming an annoyingly over-charming comedic relief, and the atmosphere needs to be spot on. Gravity succeeds on all accounts. This is really just a perfect movie, and trust me, if you try to eat popcorn, it'll just awkwardly sit in your fingers, hanging almost in your shocked open mouth as you stare at the screen in awe.
The way this movie shines on a technical and emotional level is something of absolute mastery and complete foresight. Of all movies, I compare this most to "Avatar", just on the basis of how they're both movies whose settings are entirely made of special effects, while also trying to fit in a developed plot and characters. Avatar, while I liked it okay, it really doesn't have a good plot, and clearly the focus was on the visual effects. Avatar is just Pocahontas with blue people. It is the basic structure of any mainstream animated family film and the average rom-com, but applied to sci-fi. And that means 10 years down the line, when special effects will only get better, Avatar may be pushed aside. The already cartoonish look of it's fantasy world may not be able to convince audiences decades on, and the plot and characters, while being developed passably, aren't original or involving enough to stake it's claim as a classic. That doesn't mean I'm against fantasy and sci-fi because they do need effects most of the time, but when it's overdone to the level of Avatar without any substance underneath, there's a feeling that the movie will be considered campy decades down the line
Meanwhile, and while this might sound egotistical to our time period, I do not believe effects are going to get any better than Gravity. And sure, 10 or 20 years later, maybe a film with a similar setting will come along and I'll declare that those effects are the best possible. But even then, the degree of realism here is astounding, and I can't imagine this film becoming dated in the way that Avatar might. It's probably not just the amazing achievement of the effects, it's the restraint that creates an eerily true atmosphere. In Avatar, the effects are shoved in your face constantly, mistakingly bragging about how amazing they are. In Gravity, the effects are only used to the degree they have to. There is no fantasy world that lets loose flash in the pan CGI achievements, there's just the cold hard reality of space.
Nothing in Gravity is flashy, or even that loud. When an explosion or an action scene occurs, it's not unrealistically romanticized or bombastic, it's all gloomy and anxious. Like the starting incident action scene at the beginning. Ryan Stone (Bullock) is stuck to a pole hurtling around and around after space debris crashes into the shuttle. Her fellow astronaut Matt (Clooney) tries to tell her how to unhook as she tries to in frenzy. The camera stays absolutely still, and it weirdly works, probably due to their being so much motion on the screen that the frantic editing isn't needed. Stone whirlpools toward the camera and away and back again in seconds, while Matt tries to calm her and talk her out of the constraint from the background. Meanwhile, subtly in the background, the third astronaut Shariff gets his head bludgeoned straight through by a piece of debris. Instead of overly dramatizing the moment, the audience can just barely notice the space junk flying through his head and then his silent body simply drifting away. It's really creepy. And that whole few minutes is proof that Gravity's action scenes are a haunting roller coaster of subtle, underplayed actions and frenetic dialogue, and your drawn to the screen out of pure dread.
But Gravity is not just about the adrenaline. Like I said, it's not just a vehicle to show off the effects. There is actually a large, slowly paced majority focused on the characters, their backstory and their arc. A lot of the time isn't even spent on moving the plot, which is attempting to return to earth. There will just be long moments spent between Stone and Kowalski as they float through space, or sit anxiously in a space shuttle, and it's really tender. Especially with how surprisingly well Bullock deals with her role as a woman that's been trauma-stricken by the death of her young daughter and also has to try and find her way back to earth despite being in a bizarre environment that has already killed one of her crew members and put her in a state where her only options for survival are potentially fatal. She delivers the character with ease, even through the moment where she barks along with a dog and the moments when she has to push a bunch of random buttons. And best of all, the charming, easy going Matt is a comic relief that actually doesn't detract from the mood that much. As expected, George Clooney does great at his usual George Clooney charm, but what surprises me is how even though viewers laugh at the jokes he makes, it never takes them out of the constant sense of fear that is present throughout. As they laugh, there's still that plunging sense of anxiety in their hearts.
Gravity, however, stands all the way over the top in its style based on some extremely beautiful imagery. Gravity may not be exploitative of its special effects, but it plays with its dangerous environment to haunting, even horrific measures, while keeping intact its meditative beauty. There will be these sprawling moments where someone will be hurtling through space, their bodies helplessly being flung through the infinitely large void, and captured is a sense of thrill and also depression. The agoraphobia of being in space is accented, but the sense of claustrophobia is as well. At one point the camera moves from being in space to being inside Stone's helmet. It's scary to think about how close these people really are to a silent, lonely death, and they have to force themselves to stay inside such a confining suit in order to brave the endless emptiness before them.
Yet, the eerie silence of space isn't only accented in Gravity, so is the tranquil silence of it as well. There's a lot of appreciation for how spellbinding space is, and the breathtaking views of Earth and the sunrise are really hypnotizing. That might be hypocritical with what I said earlier, but these effects aren't constantly forced in front of you with bright flashing colors and a sign that says "Hey, pay attention to me!" Rather, the effects are simple and all the stars align to make imagery and sounds that create the perfect backdrop for Stone's emotional arc involving her dead daughter.
How Gravity is able to sustain my interest for 90 minutes with just 2 people in space (the entire cast is only 7 people, by the way) is still beyond me. This is a masterful film, an anxious thriller with a solid character leading displayed by a fantastic actress. There are so many things to rave about in this film and absolutely nothing to critique, as you could probably already tell. And this is me not analyzing the film for its deeper elements. I didn't even touch the symbolic imagery present throughout, I would've really rambled if I bought that up.
5/5
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