I will try to write about “Gravity” without using hyperbole. It won’t be easy. Days after seeing the movie, the experience still overwhelms me when I think about it.
I had never seen anything like it. Many of the movies I have watched contained images that dazzled my eyes, but they didn’t transport me to another time or place. As much as I loved those films, I didn’t feel like I was doing anything other than watching a movie.
That barrier is gone with “Gravity”.
The film begins with a 13-minute unbroken shot in which bio-medical engineer Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), and other ill-fated crew members work to install new equipment on the Hubble telescope. Meanwhile, the Russians pulverize one of their satellites with a missile, sending space junk careening through orbit. Unfortunately for Stone and Co., the 20,000 mph cluster of debris crosses their path, killing everyone but Stone and Kowalski, who are left untethered in space.
During the unbroken shot, co-writer and director Alfonso Cuarón moves the camera where he pleases, keeping track not only of where everything is but what should be mirrored in a space helmet visor. The sequence is stunning, but it does more than impress technically; it pulls you into the vast, terrifying, three-dimensional emptiness of space, where you’ll spend the next 90-minutes praying for the rescue of the surviving astronauts.
The story never goes deeper than that. “Gravity” is, on its surface and to its core, a harrowing tale of the struggle of these two astronauts to survive. Do not dig for thematic substance. If you look, you’ll see irony in the shots of the astronauts stranded in a deadly vacuum while the vibrant blues and greens of Earth swallow them up, but that’s it. If there is a theme, maybe it’s that the thin ribbon of oxygen that sustains us is surrounded by infinite emptiness, and we should therefore take better care of our home.
The lack of subplots and secondary characters leaves viewers with Stone, the only onscreen presence for most of the movie. Cuarón never shows what’s taking place at Mission Control, but instead strands viewers in space with Bullock’s character. Stripping the story, cast, and setting down to its essentials has an immersive effect; you never leave the urgency of the moment, or are allowed to care about anything other than Stone making it to the end of the movie alive. If Stone doesn’t get to breathe, neither do you.
This brings me to the 3D, which is the preferred way to see “Gravity”. (You should also see it on the largest possible screen.) I’m no astrophysicist, but the physics of movement in space seem to have been rendered as realistically as possible. Not only does Bullock spend the bulk of the movie in simulated zero-”Gravity”; so does the audience. The movement of the camera often replicates that of someone observing the action in space. That produces one sensation when the astronauts are casually drifting about, and another feeling entirely when Stone or Kowalski are struggling to grab hold of any piece of orbiting metal to keep from spinning into oblivion.
The fidelity of the visuals has no equal. “Avatar” set the standard for realism in 2009, and four years later, “Gravity” pushes it even further. I felt as though I was suspended in space, watching satellite debris rip the international space station into a million pieces as Stone desperately tries to enter an escape module.
Lastly, I should mention the audio. When “Alien” was released in 1979, ads proclaimed, “In space, no one can hear you scream,” as there’s nothing to carry sound. “Gravity” adheres to this truth in a way no other movie I have seen has. Most of the audio is what the astronauts would be hearing in their helmets, so as satellite debris is ripping a space station to pieces, the only sound to punctuate the drama is the music, which also is minimalistic. The most impressive moments aurally are those which suddenly have no sound, as when an astronaut is suddenly thrust from a vacuum chamber into dead space.
As “Gravity” ended and the credits rolled, the audience with which I watched the movie was silent. Then a woman in the back of the theater said, “That was amazing.” Moments later, I could hear several people echoing her thoughts. I said I would try to not hyperbolize, so I will resist the temptation to call “Gravity” a landmark achievement in cinema, and will instead echo the awestruck reaction of the woman: “It’s amazing.”
Four stars out of four. Rated PG-13 for intense perilous sequences, disturbing images, and brief strong language.