Directed by Alfonso Cuaron
Starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney

Grade: A

Gravity is about life and death, birth and rebirth, and isolation and community. It’s also about the visceral fear of survival in an environment that doesn’t permit life. This film, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, succeeds in both stated objectives, entertainment and subtext are both given equal attention. I imagine the physics can be picked apart, though the science felt very real and plausible to me, but if you’re focusing on the believability of a movie set in space then I would suggest you’re doing yourself a disservice. Gravity is not interested in being the most accurate scientific movie of all time, though it takes care to make it passable, it’s goal is to thrill the audience and remind that even we’re literally cut off from the world and surrounded by millions of miles of emptiness, we’re never truly alone. The lack of cynicism in this movie, without passing into sentimentality, is its greatest achievement.

The plot is simple. There is an accident on a satellite and Doctor Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), on her first trip to the space, is cast off into space along with seasoned veteran Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and together they must survive and make it back to Earth. In some ways, I suppose, it’s Open Water set in space, though there are no space sharks (new movie idea: Space Sharks!). They’re forced to use their limited resources and fall back on every small piece of training they received in order to get home. Obviously, there are many setbacks and hardships along the way. A lesser movie would be mostly concerned with awesome looking set pieces and visual graphics, while offering a foregone conclusion of their safe return, but Gravity actually cares about whether they survive or not and each set piece is constructed with that in mind.

George Clooney has recently made a string of movies, namely The American and Up in the Air, where the lesson the protagonist learns is that no man is an island, that people need people, or as Ryan Bingham says in the latter movie: “Life is better with company.” Those movies, though, have a cynical edge in that the lesson is learned but too late to do anything about it. Gravity has the same lesson but doesn’t seem to suggest it’s ever too late to learn such a thing (whether they survive or not is not relevant to this lesson and you’ll get no spoilers from me as to the outcome of that). The final shot of this movie is gorgeous and life-affirming and all that shit I usually hate but it’s done so well here that I’m completely sold.

Sandra Bullock brings fear and a quiet desperation to this role. As Doctor Ryan Stone, a name that is representative of both man and woman, and yes she represents all of us, she is a grieving mother, who lost her daughter to an unfortunate and simple accident. She has severed all ties to the world and, both literally and figuratively, and doesn’t really seem to care whether she lives or dies. This is until, of course, she is actually faced with death and must confront all that it means to live and to die. Maybe it’s a simple plot device, force a miserable person to fight for their life and thus teach them to live, I mean it’s been done a shit ton of times, sure, but it works so well here that it feels new and fresh despite the cliché. I don’t know that Bullock or Clooney deserve any acting awards for these performances, the movie itself seems like the star to me, but Bullock in particular, who I usually am not a huge fan of, brings her A game and sells the role to near perfection. There are a couple of cringe worthy lines of dialogue and a very heavy handed scene where she resembles a fetus in a womb, but they are small gripes overall. Clooney, meanwhile, brings his usual sleazy charm that provides levity and experience, and Stone’s last chance at a human connection.

See this movie in IMAX if you can. I couldn’t because apparently the greater Phoenix area would rather play Elysium in its IMAX theaters rather than a space epic, but I did see it in 3D and thought for once it added a worthy element to the movie, rather than just looking vaguely cool. The depth of space seems more infinite and terrifying and wonderful in three dimensions. I was so engrossed by the end of this film that I walked out to my car still wearing my 3D glasses. I probably looked like an idiot, but I feel that proves how good this movie was, and I’m pretty used to looking like an idiot, so no big deal.