GRAVITY Review

The moment the title card came up at the end of Gravity I was ready to see it again. It has that type of effect on you where despite the fact what you've been a part of over the last ninety minutes was completely terrifying, completely out of your comfort zone, completely eye-opening and maybe to certain things you wouldn't want to admit; it was still so exhilarating that you want to experience it again and immediately. That is the kind of reaction I expect most people will have as they leave the theater and begin to reflect on what they've just witnessed for not only is it a visual delight, a technological wonder that defies all convention and expectation, but it never forgets story and character, the two driving forces behind anything worth telling. If there isn't an engaging story, a narrative to pull us in and recognizable characters, people with whom we live vicariously through or sympathize with in their moments of need and desperation then there is no connection to the film other than that of a superficial one. Director Alfonso Cuarón, who made the well-received but little seen Children of Men and my personal favorite Harry Potter film (The Prisoner of Azkaban), has crafted what could easily become one of those defining moments in cinematic history where the mythology that will no doubt come to surround Gravity will be as great as the content of the film itself. This is a game-changer in ways only those who hope to create something bigger than themselves, something that pushes the boundaries, but does so for the right reasons could only hope to achieve. It is a film that as far as I can tell best captures the feeling of being in space without actually having to go there. The vastness of it, the colossal weight of what it means, the beauty of it all, yet the film also comes to carry much more weight than simply functioning as a National Geographic tutorial on space travel while teaching a lesson about the consequences of space junk; it is a story about existence, about human nature, about the will to live and everything that comes along with these giant themes that are as extensive as the universe itself.