Remember Gravity?

Released in 2013, Gravity is largely a two-person film.  There are a few other characters who appear at the start of the film and we hear different voices throughout the movie (including the voice of Ed Harris, cast once again as the voice of NASA) but, for the most part, this film centers on George Clooney and Sandra Bullock floating through space.  Clooney is Kowalski.  Bullock is Stone.  They’re two astronauts who are in space trying to fix the Hubble Telescope when their shuttle is struck by a wave of space debris.  When the shuttle inoperable and the rest of the crew dead, Kowalski and Stone try to figure out how to get back down to Earth.

Space, it turns out, is not as empty as we tend to assume.  Along with the space debris that caused them to get stranded in space in the first place, there’s also a lot of abandoned equipment and outposts that they can use to get back to Earth.  Unfortunately, they’ve got limited oxygen and limited time with which to reach any of that equipment and, even if they do reach it, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to get any of it to work.  After Kowalski sacrifices himself to help Stone reach the International Space Station, Stone alone must find a way to return to Earth before the space debris complete their orbit and again threaten to send her hurtling into space.

Gravity is one of those films that demands to not only be seen on the big screen but also to be seen in 3D.  (I say this as someone who was not exactly a fan of the post-Avatar 3D boom.  Too often, 3D felt like a distraction.  In Gravity, it feels like a key part of the story.)  The film not captures the terror of being alone in the emptiness of space but, at the same time, it also captures the beauty of having the entire universe in front of you.  It’s a visually stunning and beautiful film.  Kowalski says, at one point, that he has a hell of a view and it’s hard not to agree with him.  Space may be deadly but it’s beautiful as well.  Stone finds herself tempted to simply allow herself to spend the rest of eternity floating lifelessly in space but ultimately, she embraces life.  She refuses to give up and the film refuses to give up on her or, by extension, the rest of humanity.  Gravity celebrates the beauty of space and creation while also showing that life on Earth has its own beauty as well.  By the film’s end, one can argue that Stone has literally been reborn.

It’s a powerful film, one that is well-acted by both Bullock and George Clooney, both of whom have the star power necessary to hold our interest even when the overwhelming grandeur of space threatens to steal our attention.  (I would argue that Bullock’s performance here is far superior to her Oscar-winning turn in The Blind Side.)  Gravity received ten Oscar nominations and it won seven of them, including the Best Director award for Alfonso Cuaron.  However, it lost Best Picture to another powerful film, 12 Years A Slave.