The Situation of the Gravity

So, as I mentioned briefly yesterday, I have been to see the new movie Gravity. It stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts marooned in space after their spacecraft is destroyed by orbital debris. But the real star is the virtuoso filmmaking by director Alfonso Cuarón.

Gravity is a truly impressive feat. In an age where most moviegoers know exactly "how they did that" (and can guess in most of the occasions where they don't know), Gravity manages to pull off a number of clever visual effects. More importantly, you're soon so immersed in the movie that you don't even bother to question how. The space environment of the film is so convincing that you really do feel that it's as close to actually being there as you'll ever likely get. (And, given the procession of disasters that befalls the characters, you may feel like you don't want to go there anyway.)

Another impressive accomplishment in my book is that the film more than justifies its use of 3D. It's been a long time since I saw a movie where 3D felt like an integral and enhancing part of the experience as opposed to a gimmick wedged in or tacked on. Gravity may be the first legitimate "see it on the big screen" movie in years. On a huge screen with 3D and ear-bursting sound, you truly just fall into the environment.

It's also the most nerve-wracking, tense movie I've seen in a long time, for more effective at making you grip your arm rests tightly than any horror movie I've seen of late. Every time a character just manages to grab on to something -- and stay holding onto it -- you tense in your seat. When you see the cloud of debris approaching, you cringe. It's a true thrill ride of a movie.

The performances are also excellent. Only two actors ever appear on screen, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. (The very small number of other characters are either only heard, or seen after death.) They have to carry the film all by themselves, and do an excellent job in it. You very quickly become personally invested in their hopeless struggle. Or, put another way, all those impressive effects are in service of a very personal story. Alphonso Cuarón puts the performances and not the spectacle at center stage.

That said, the characters themselves aren't as powerful as the performances. Cuarón also wrote the script (co-writing it with his son), and it does have a few flaws. Physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has pointed out the handful of scientific ones, and has ultimately pronounced the film enjoyable in spite of them. (Generally, the movie doesn't make many science mistakes accidentally; it chooses to fudge a fact or two for a dramatic point.) But setting aside the nitpicks, the other flaw in the script is that the characters are rather shallow. It's sort of a consequence of the breakneck pace of the disaster, and the avalanche of calamities that follows. The movie has too much plot to have much character.

Ordinarily, this would throw a movie straight into "summer action junk" territory for me. If you're trying to distract me with things blowing up in the hopes I won't notice your shallow characters, I'm turned off. But the compensating element here is that there are consequences to "things blowing up." The two characters may ultimately be little more than ciphers, but you watch them struggle mightily, and you care about what happens to them. That ultimately separates this film from normal action fare.

Well, that and the utter, immersive believability of the action unfolding.

I give Gravity an A-. It's certainly going to end up on my 2013 Top 10 list.