Gravity Soars

Gravity – Directed by Alfonso Cuaron; Written by Alfonso Cuaron and Jonas Cuaron; Starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney; PG-13 for intense situations

I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say this before, but I have never had a movie experience anything remotely like what Gravity provides. If only because it is the most purely cinematic non-animated movie ever made, Gravity deserves to go down in history. It is a thrilling piece in which the spectacle never stops, but because the spectacle is serving the story at every moment, the movie works. Visually gorgeous, packed with thrills and heart, Gravity is a thoroughly stunning achievement and ought to win Best Picture for the decade as far as I am concerned. If it doesn’t win for Sound Mixing and Editing, I will personally picket the Academy.

I say it is purely cinematic, because there aren’t a handful of minutes in the whole piece that could have been achieved in any other medium except cinema. This isn’t a story that could be told in any other way than on the screen, and that is a rare and wonderful thing.

I don’t want to say anything about the story because a huge part of the enjoyment of the piece is the non-stop reversals, and if I even start to tell you about the character’s wants and needs, I’ll have given away the inciting incident.Suffice it to say this is a brilliantly structured adventure story that allows the audience a thoroughly unique point of view. We saw it in IMAX 3D so that effect was rendered even more impressive.

The story does everything it’s supposed to in heaping greater and greater challenges on the main character played very effectively by an ever-aspirating Sandra Bullock. Once it launches, the beats never let up. It’s nothing if not a Triumph of the Human Spirit story, but it also surprises with a lovely little spiritual theme about the essential religious/immortal element of human beings.

Go see it and then write and tell me how much you enjoyed it. Probably not for small children as it is very intense in its thrills, but there is nothing problematic here at all in terms of sex or language. Super movie.