Gravity (2013)

Spaced Out

This entire review could be an open love letter to Emmanuel Lubezki and his ability to capture the stunning beauty of everything he puts on the screen. This could also be a drooling fan letter to Alfonso Cuaron for constantly creating jaw dropping and breath stealing moments of cinema that stick in your imagination for days after you have seen them. Here he has directed and, with his son Jonas, written a masterpiece of a film that never manages to ease up on the tension. "Gravity" is more than just a spectacular feat in aesthetic film making, it is also a harrowing survival tale told in the void of space. Fortunately for the audience, the final frontier has never seemed so dangerous, or looked so vastly captivating, as it does in this movie.

Cuaron made me believe in two things with this offering: 1. He, like only three directors before him, made me believe in the power, and the story telling ability, of the current 3D craze. It came off as more than just a gimmick, and helped immerse the viewer into the vast emptiness that envelops its characters, as well as create a depth to the things that surround them: the Earth, the space stations, the onslaught of debris that constantly threatens their lives. Much like Scorsese's "Hugo", or Ang Lee's "Life of Pi", "Gravity" uses the technology to advance the story, rather than to make a quick dollar from it.

2. Sandra Bullock. I have never been a fan of Sandra Bullock. Her acting has always been bland, and she never looks natural or comfortable on film. The latter of those two complaints actually worked to her advantage in this film. I can say, without hyperbole, that she gives the best performance of her career in this film (despite winning an Oscar for "The Blind Side"), and it completely makes up for this summer's disaster "The Heat" (though Melissa McCarthy has yet to make up for it). Bullock is directed to pure perfection in this role. Everything is on the line, and she conveys every bit of fear, desperation, and loneliness with great aplomb.

This is truly the type of film that comes along once in a generation, and you would be foolish not to see it the way it is meant to be seen.

Grade: A+
3D: YES!
Easter Egg: No

Starring: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Writer(s): Alfonso Cuaron & Jonas Cuaron
RT: 90 min
Rating: PG-13 for intense perilous sequences, some disturbing images and brief strong language