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The story of “Gravity” is deceptively – well, maybe that make that glaringly – simple, and that simple story is contrasted against the jaw-dropping camera trickery at work throughout. Its opening is a virtually uninterrupted twenty minute shot that glides and winds its way through the earthly orbit where astronauts Kowalski (George Clooney), the old pro, and Stone (Sandra Bullock), the specialist tasked to assist with a bit of Hubble repair on this first trip to space. Alas, back on earth the distant voice of mission control (Ed Harris, thus echoing Gene Kranz of “Apollo 13”) indicates a Russian attempt to shoot down their own satellite has gone awry. Debris hurtles toward our defenseless spacewalking astronauts. Communications are cut. Their shuttle is smashed to smithereens and their fellow NASA men and women lost. They are on their own in space, short on precious oxygen and looking for a way home.
Anymore movies of this ilk seek to address the plight of humanity, to be about our world and its present ills, to function as commentary as it goes about kicking ass. "Gravity", however, is much, much less “2001” than it is Spielberg’s “Duel” or Rodrigo Cortes’ “Buried”, a sorta real-time thriller that proves Murphy’s Law applies even in space. Which is not to suggest it lacks thematic ambition. It does not, and that is also, I fear, where perhaps the film partially miscalculates.
As established, “Gravity” is first, foremost and throughout a story being told visually, and yet when Cuaron and his son Jonas, with whom he wrote the screenplay, turn to theme they do so through either awkwardly wordy passages or images that have not earned their supposed weight. The latter is tied directly to the end, which feels less spiritually uplifting than it wants to be because of the former. Stone is saddled with a tragic, and tragically thin, backstory, yearning to illuminate effects of isolation both on the Earth and above it. And thus, Cuaron’s film shoehorns in monologues and helpings of characterization that distinctly feel as manufactured as his set pieces feel effortless. One scene meant as Stone’s turning point to the drive for home is so jarring and frustrating you’ll know it’s a fake straight away.
It’s weird, and it’s weird because “Gravity” is so regal in the way it looks that nothing Cuaron could have these characters say would live up to what they and we see. Earth can be a lonely place, after all, but never more so then when the entire planet itself is right in front of you…..so close, so far.
That we still find ourselves tethered to emotion and not just sensation is a testament to Ms. Bullock, who has chopped her hair and significantly dialed down the every-woman charm she oozes in such abundance. She seems more terse and withdrawn and impatient with Clooney’s glibness in the face of doom. As such, “Gravity” emerges less than some sort of metaphorical rebirth than a closed-off woman opening up to the battling back, fight and (space) flight. Her moments of weakness are as winning as her moments of strength, and that duality is what prevents me from betting onboard with the attitude of the finale.
For all the soundless explosions and zero gravity spins and dips that caused my weak-willed stomach to order my eyes shut, the shot I will remember most involves Stone floating wordlessly in a space station airlock moments after surviving another frenzied ordeal. She closes her own eyes and just…..floats. Physically re-grouping, mentally re-charging, preparing to forge on. It is open to symbolic interpretation, but I will go with a more literal reading. Even when you’re all alone in space, sometimes you just need a moment to yourself.
