Gravity

★★★★

Dir: Alfonso Cuarón

(2013) 

Bold simplicity is something that is often forgotten in science fiction. Premise after premise, on paper, will often light up the eyes of even the most trepidatious film goer. Year after year our spirits are buoyed by "in a future where" or "in a world where" ideas but that only makes the height of the fall, once the film and its second act wades bullishly into standard action fare, hurt all the more. Neill Blomkamp's Elysium could be cited as case in-point this year but you'd be spoilt for choice to choose a sci-fi concept film which failed on fully delivering on the promise of its one liner.

Alfonso Cuarón obviously knows this and so sets about using his excellent visual intuition to raise his Gravity head and shoulders above its very, very simple skeleton like plot. Two Astronauts, played by a frantic Sandra Bullock and a cool cowboy like George Clooney, are stranded; Untethered from their ship, 350 miles above the earth with limited oxygen and fuel. They have as little to hold on to as we do and in a stoke of big screen genius, Cuarón makes us feel like we're living every terrifying minute with mammoth uncut shots.

The design and the 3D on Gravity is near perfection. Every breath Bullock's Ryan Stone takes seems amplified above the spectacular silence of the more destructive sequences, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and special effects whiz Tim Webber create a seat in space for us all to grip onto, a black world which works "inside" the screen instead of relying on 3D gimmicks to get their perspective and ideas across. This is a 3D film with ideas, with a unique way of stretching tension and for that reason it is imperative that you see it as such.

There are of course nods and cliché in Gravity. Bullock, exhausted and on the verge of unconsciousness curls up into the fetal position, spinning before a large round door, evoking, purposely the space baby of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Clooney's Matt Kowalsky is laughably just a few days from retirement and the even the stories told smack, ultimately, of a little too much sugar. Ed Harris even play's "Houston" reminding all of another audience winning sci-fi extravaganza in Apollo 13. But it's impossible for those few niggles to completely hinder this stunningly effective and unquestionably tense pot boiler.

Cuarón's feel for thrills is absolutely what stops Gravity from hitting the ground at any point. These 90 minutes, though not especially deep, are one of the most intense spent in a cinema in recent memory and although the technical audacity is what will surely get the Oscar nods, it's the films bare simplicity and breathlessness which should be wholeheartedly rewarded.