Gravity - Cinema Review

Gravity is a harrowing desolate breath of freezing fresh air for space-based astronaut antics. It focuses on the simplest and not even the most dramatic ways space can so easily kill you. The biggest threat throughout the film is simply drifting off into the abyss and it makes every scene a nail-biting tightrope act to watch. If the film is weak in any areas i would say it's the necessary routine opening that wastes no time but does have to lay the net of false security in order to pull the rug from beneath you later.

Rather than compare Gravity to other space-faring features it reminds me more of a film like 127 Hours, which for those unaware is similarly spent in isolation with gradual creeping danger albeit on relatively solid ground. The basic premise is simple enough in Gravity, where a standard operation becomes hazardous due to accelerating debris crossing paths with our three person crew. Cut off from support, safety and well...everything,  the protagonist Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) clings to fellow crew member and astronaut veteran Matt Kowalski (George Clooney). Dwindling oxygen supplies, the next impending storm of debris and simply having a firm grasp on something man-made in the inky swallowing blackness become the priorities of survival for these two.

As a primarily two person show, particular mention must go to the acting from both Bullock and Clooney who play off each other as newcomer and veteran incredibly well. The writing from Alfonso and Jonas Cuaron is also solid for the most part and works well amidst the pacing of reflective silence and dramatic desperation that the film swings between. Incredible as the exploits are in the film, they never divert into unrealism and whilst i'm not experienced enough to know if Gravity portrays space accurately, it seems to handle it's own physics very well and it really feels like these fragile people are adrift amongst tiny rafts of safety in this endless vacuous cosmos.

The atmosphere of isolation is potent and can be really chilling especially in the latter half of the film. The Earth is a constant giant looming reminder of life and yet feels so impossibly far away for the essentially crippled astronauts trying desperately to limp through space to safety. The visuals are appropriately stunning in both their majesty and bleakness, detail and desolation. I've not seen a great amount of space films and those i have are highly regarded titles such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Moon which both capture the isolation of space very well in their own way. That said Gravity should definitely be considered within their orbit as an intensely personal and close gripping drama unique in it's focus on (or lack of) location as we see just how empty the great surrounding emptiness really is.