New Release Review: 'Gravity'

I don't like being underwater, feeling my lungs burn for oxygen. Even with scuba gear it doesn't get much better: being told to regulate your breathing, to take it slow and steady, leaves you wanting, needing, to do the opposite. It's an alien environment, and we're far from well adapted to it. Gravity takes that feeling and runs with it. Set 420 kilometres above the Earth, in a zone called the thermosphere, Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is working on the Hubble Space Telescope when things go awry - and the outer reaches of our atmosphere isn't a place where you want things to awry. Left tumbling through space after satellite debris tears into the telescope, Stone's first problem is... Well her first problem is that she's tumbling through space. Her second problem is that her oxygen is running out. At this point Gravity is barely 10-minutes into its story, and things aren't going to improve much for Dr. Stone.

Let's start with the plaudits: Gravity is beautiful. It's either a string of virtuoso set pieces (I counted at least six) or it's just one big set piece. The hyperbole on the posters is, for once, actually accurate: it's 'nail-biting' and 'armchair-rending', it'll have your 'stomach twisted in knots' and your 'lungs screaming for air'. There wasn't one shot, one moment, that made me question whether what I was seeing was real. It was so immersive, so believable, that when Stone's oxygen ran low I switched to short steady breaths, just like I'd been taught; when Stone couldn't breathe, I didn't breathe; when she needed to hold on tight, or else be thrown into oblivion, I held tight (albeit to my armchair, which is probably less structurally sound after I'd pulled at it for 90-minutes). Gravity is a thrill ride.

Now, with that hearty backslapping out of the way, onto the nit picking. Gravity is a survival tale set not just in the most brutal environment in existence, but also the most isolated (or isolating?). Our heroine is truly alone - and we are alone with her. Which is where things get problematic. Bullock is great as the distant, anxious, specialist whose on her first space mission, but there's no reason to care about Stone. Bullock is playing an everywoman in the same way that Harrison Ford and Jimmy Stewart played the everyman, and the point of such a character is that we're able to put ourselves into their shoes. And we do (not least because Cuaron often uses a first person perspective, forcing us to see things through Stone's eyes), but to really make that work, to really make the film a masterclass of filmmaking - which Cuaron's Children of Men was - you have to care about Stone beyond a general feeling of 'Ooooooh, gee, I'd hate to be in that situation'. In Children of Men the characterisation may have been secondary to the technological wizardry, but in Gravity it feels like characterisation comes third or fourth on the list of priorities.

That said, Gravity is impressive. It is astounding. But, more than anything, it's a roller coaster ride in space.

Overall: 8.5/10