OVP: Gravity (2013)

Film: Gravity (2013)
Stars: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris, Amy Warren
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Oscar History: 10 nominations/7 wins (Best Picture, Director*, Actress-Sandra Bullock, Film Editing*, Cinematography*, Visual Effects*, Sound Mixing*, Sound Editing*, Art Direction, Score*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Gravity opens quite knowingly with the audience looking on three astronauts, high above the earth, zooming around a space station as if they are on a jungle gym.  Cuaron knows that the marketing department at Warner Brothers has not allowed for the audience to go into the film completely blind, and in a packed theater (literally the best way to see any movie), you can feel the sense of dread feeding back-and-forth to the screen.  We hear George Clooney and Ed Harris (nice little cameo there, for anyone that caught it and thought of another doomed cinematic space mission) bantering, and eventually we hear that debris may be headed for the ship.  What we're not sure of is who is about to survive, and what will become of us all during this stunningly quick 91-minute adventure.

(Spoilers ahead) With the debris killing all but Clooney's Matt and Bullock's Ryan, we're left with a quintessential tale of survival, but in perhaps the most horrifying of places.  The film continues with Bullock and Clooney finding themselves at odds with the stunning world of space.  The film somehow feels lightning quick (it's such a short movie for such an epic tale), but you never feel as if you're being rushed, except of course when it plays into the story.  Though it's obvious that only one (Bullock) will be returning, Cuaron does a marvelous job with Clooney's sendoff-having him sacrifice himself to give Bullock the remotest of chances, and then giving us a protracted goodbye from him, talking to Ryan as she realizes that she'll have to go on alone.

The film after this point occasionally goes into the melodramatic, with Ryan finding religion for the briefest of seconds, but even these moments are sold so well by Bullock and Cuaron that you can buy into them.  Part of me wondered in the film's final third if Bullock's Ryan was doomed to die alone in space.  There was a part of me who thought artistically this would have been the right decision-Cuaron is not afraid of sacrificing his main characters to prove a point.  However, after seeing all that she had gone through, both on and off the earth (her daughter had died, leaving her alone in the world), I think it would have been too heartbreaking for us to bear the thought of her dying alone in space.  That dreary ending can be saved for the next Lars von Trier movie.

The movie manages to be something few films can accomplish, though.  It somehow is an epic that matters and despite critics praising it all over the internet, still lives up to the hype.  Cuaron is smart to have hired an ace behind-the-camera crew, none more so than Emmanuel Lubezki.  Lubezki, probably the greatest living film artist to not have an Oscar (I know that's a pretty strong statement, but can you name one that deserves the trophy more?) frames every scene of Gravity with a wide, expansive detail. You feel immersed in his vast open space.  Look at the way that he frames even the smallest of items and how focused they look when given his wide black emptiness, and all of the perfect shots he gives of the blue planet below.  Lubezki is the genius behind Sleepy Hollow, Y Tu Mama Tambien, The New World, Children of Men, The Tree of Life, and this past year's To the Wonder, and if he cannot pull off the Oscar for either the Malick film or Cuaron's, the Academy might as well just close up shop.

Cuaron's selection of Bullock as the central character may have been the biggest risk he took, in fact, with his first movie in seven years.  Bullock, known to most of us for her rom-coms and occasional film dramas, hasn't done much in Sci Fi and certainly hasn't been the muse of a world class auteur in this way before.  However, as Ryan, she just nails the part-you can feel her fear in every scene, and the way she lets the bitterness and her antipathy toward life just flow out-it's a magical and full-force performance from an actress I've always believed had it in her to be alongside the greats.  Cuaron deserves some kudos for this out-of-the-box casting; by picking an actress that we all see as "one of us," he further pushes us into his movie.  If this can happen to Sandra Bullock, the current everywoman of American cinema, something this nail-biting could befall on one of us.  This feeling of dread wouldn't have worked with someone like Angelina Jolie, who was originally rumored for the part.

In the end, unlike some of his past films such as Children of Men, there's very little political or pointed messages being said by Cuaron, but you still feel that this is great story accomplishment in addition to being a visual feast.  While the dialogue is minimal, he still finds a way to showcase strength and perseverance without falling into the hackneyed, and manages to find a great spirit even in the most damaged of souls.  The fact that a movie this large and artistic and groundbreaking will be seen by so many people is a true miracle, and hopefully one that will inspire other great directors to...(I hate myself for saying it too)...shoot for the stars.

What did you think of Gravity?  Are you as enamored as I?  What Oscar races do you see it factoring into?  And what auteur do you wish Bullock would sign on with next?