GRAVITY

GRAVITY Review

By Darin Skaggs

     Every once in a while my mind wanders and ends up thinking about what if I was stuck in the middle of the ocean.  I’m not drowning but I don’t know which way to go.  These thoughts terrify me.  Alfanso Cauron’s new film Gravity takes that idea and puts it in space and ends up terrifying us even more.

     Gravity begins with three astronauts including Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock and Matt Kowalsky, played by George Clooney. They are outside their space ship doing some fix-it-ups.  Soon enough a bunch of debris heading towards them at top speed knocks them loose from their station.  The station is destroyed and eventually Matt gets to Ryan after much trouble. They spend the rest of the film trying to find a way home.

     This film has so much going on.  It is a film about learning to let go of the stuff that is hard to deal with and come back to reality.  Also it is a film about the fear and calmness of loneliness.   The film has so much going on your idea of it could probably change with each viewing.  Ryan has been dealing with grief for a while and spends her life not communicating or interacting with the outside world.  It is like when she was on earth she might as well have been in space all alone and far, far away from humanity.  The film says so many things about life.

     The film while having so many metaphors is also incredibly tense.  When the station is hit the first time it is so intense and the film does not let up from there.  There are so many times you hope that Matt or Ryan can hang on to a part of the station before they are propelled into space forever.  It is a true edge of your seat thriller.  The film is also filled with little moments, like when Ryan gets out of harm’s way she is given a moment to herself.  She gets out of her suit and just stops moving.  She takes a moment just to breathe before chaos returns.

     Bollock does great work carrying the film, in one of her greatest if not the greatest performance of her career.  She holds your attention for the whole film, which is a challenging task when your one of the only actors in the film and for the most of the film the only visible part of her is her face.  This film is incredible and one of the most intense and meaningful films of the year.