GRAVITY: Starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Rated M.
Review from Catholic News Service
HOLD on tight for the ride of your life in Gravity, a lost-in-space adventure as exhilarating as it is terrifying.
Director Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men), who co-wrote the screenplay with his son Jonas, serves up a modern-day horror story with top-notch performances and dazzling 3D cinematography that envelops the audience in the majesty of space. The film’s life-or-death scenario evokes the spirit of the 2011 movie Apollo 18. But the danger here doesn’t come from aliens as it did in that feature.
Instead, it results from all-too-human technology gone badly wrong.
Amid the mayhem, Gravity has another, deeper story to tell, as the nearness of death provokes reflections on mortality and the afterlife. The space shuttle is in orbit 595km (370 miles) above Earth, and astronauts Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) are outside it, making repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope.
The two crewmates are chalk and cheese. Stone, the cool, reserved scientist on her first mission; Kowalski the cocky veteran, a fun-loving space cowboy with the gift of the gab who’s savouring his final voyage.
“Houston, I have a bad feeling about this mission,” Kowalski quips light-heartedly to mission control before breaking into another yarn as his favourite country music plays in the background.
Kowalski’s levity is misplaced. When the Russians launch a missile against a spy satellite, it causes a chain reaction in space, raining debris on the astronauts. Within seconds, the shuttle is destroyed, and Kowalski and Stone are the only survivors, cut off from Earth and spiralling into outer space.
What ensues is ET in reverse, as our plucky marooned humans search for a way to go home, where gravity is taken for granted. With Kowalski steering his jet pack and Stone on a tether, they make their way to the nearest oasis, the International Space Station, where more challenges await.
To describe what happens next would be a spoiler. Suffice it to say, in the deafening silence of space, the duo has plenty of time to meditate as they stare death in the face.
For Stone, this is an epiphany. She laments that she is alone in the world.
“Who will pray for my soul?” she asks.
While she admits that she has never prayed herself, she regrets that no one ever taught her how. Such feelings are hardly surprising when the possibility of death is imminent.
But Gravity, which provides a rare combination of enlightenment and excitement, uses these sentiments as stepping stones toward a resolution that viewers of faith will find both satisfying and refreshingly pro-life.
In view of its underlying significance, and despite the elements listed, some parents may consider Gravity acceptable for mature adolescents.
