Gravity is eye popping stuff. Alfonso Cuaron has made a movie that is unlike any we’ve ever seen before. It’s almost as groundbreaking as Avatar minus the flaws Cameron’s film had. Cuaron's magic here is perfect. This is a straightforward blockbuster from an auteur who knows how to please. Cuaron's films have legitimately made him one of the best directors around (Children Of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien) hell he even made high art out of a Harry Potter film. Prisoner Of Azkaban was by far the best one of the series, with its exceptional visuals. So who's to expect anything else but a great movie from Cuaron. He's made one here with Gravity. There are no eye popping, gut squirming villains in this space world. The villain here is just gravity itself in all of its nightmarish, scientific and subtle madness.
It would be unfair to reveal the secrets behind the plot but suffice to say a master is at work here and Cuaron has surely directed Sandra Bullock to her second Oscar Nomination – if not, her second win. Bullock is dead-on as an astronaut with not much to live for but her job, especially as she is still mourning the death of her daughter back at home. Corny stuff right? but you believe it and are affected by it. George Clooney plays her co-pilot in the space mission and he acts, well, like George Clooney in an astronaut suit. I'm fine with that. Some of the visuals here are tremendous, in a how-the-hell-did-they-do-it kind of way. It was supposedly a torturous experience for Sandra Bullock as she told us at the film's premiere in Toronto. Bullock was in a cubicle the entire shoot of the film and had to rely on her imagination to act out the scenes. It seems to have worked.
Gravity is a film that relies on its visuals to tell a story. The hypnotic madness of space itself is continuously a theme that was delved upon before, most notably in Stanley Kubrick's 2001:A Space Odyssey. This is not as trippy an experience as Kubrick's journey into the human psyche but it relies on that film as a draft for its more entertaining aspirations. Some of Gravity's images have been firmly planted into my head since I last saw it in Toronto 3 weeks ago. It's a film that is meant to be seen on the biggest screen possible with the biggest speakers. The dialogue is minimal but the music -brilliantly composed by Stephen Price- drives the story along with its loud, penetrating beat.
The last 10 minutes of Gravity are as intense any film I've seen this year, in fact it'll make you appreciate the grounded feel of our beloved planet. There's something to be said about a film that takes place mostly in space with not much plot to speak for but the survival of its protagonists. What Cuaron and his brother Carlos -they wrote the screenplay together- have achieved is an immersive experience unlike any other we've ever seen before. Comparisons to Avatar will be made, but Gravity is a better, more artful experience. A 90 minute trip to space with the unrelenting feeling of wanting to get out alive.