A number of films that deal with isolation also deal with the fear of containment. Castaway pits Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) on an island. Pi is trapped on a boat with a hungry tiger. In Buried, Ryan Gosling must ward off claustrophobia and – inexplicably – fire in a coffin. Frozen relegates our skiers to their chairlift, too far to jump, too close to hungry wolves if they do.
Alfonso Cuaron’s (Children of Men) new film, Gravity is slight departure from these other films. There are moments of confinement for Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock): she’s nearly suffocated in a space suit as her oxygen level reaches 0% and she’s forced to “sip” her oxygen like “wine” to ward of carbon dioxide poisoning, and the pods in which she tries to make her escape back to Earth are hardly roomy. However, the first half of the film focuses on the immense vastness of space. Whereas the aforementioned “isolation films” create a loneliness through restriction, Stone is isolated in an arena that has no bounds. This is no more apparent than when she is flung like a jai alai ball from an arm on the space station that has been struck by shrapnel from a recently destroyed Russian satellite.
There is no ocean to stop her momentum. There is no sandy beach to break her fall. There is no boat to cling to for safety. There is nothing. No sound but her own erratic breathing. There is nothing to grasp physically, and nothing to steady herself visually but the constantly, perpetually rotating stars and Earth. From a distance, we watch her roll farther and farther into space. Head over heels she tumbles, but it is in relative slow motion. But it is a motion, nonetheless, that has no end.
And it never will. And this is where we feel the terror of Gravity. Stone’s tumbling is in sharp contrast to Matt Kowalski’s (George Clooney), her crew member who, prior to the deluge of shattered satellite, gracefully flits around the space station, floating wherever he’d like with the assistance of a jet pack. Space transitions from the experience of a lifetime and the freedom of flight to an infinite grave yard, where there is no final resting place.
Of course, the movie doesn’t end here for Stone. Cuaron does not beat us over the head with her seemingly inevitable death. Within seconds that feel like a lifetime, Kowalski jettisons himself to rescue Stone, and they make their way back to the remains of the space station and then on to a Russian space station in an attempt to board one of its evacuation pods. As the narrative progresses, we get to know Stone better, while Kowalski becomes a minor character, and there are a few “you’ve got to be kidding me!” moments, but at least these moments are seconded – and thirded – by Stone, so the improbable bad luck seems a bit more palatable.
There’s too much value in seeing Gravity, so I won’t approach any spoilers here, but if you’re going to see it, do it in 3D. This is not a popular endorsement on this website. In fact, I generally detest most 3D endeavors because they become so caught up in the gimmick that the story – and most everything else – is sacrificed. This is not the case in Gravity. Objects don’t leap off the screen at you in an attempt to make you jump. Rather, Gravity makes you see the vastness of space, and it creates an amazing depth of field that makes you appreciate the fact that you are safely on the Earth that Stone and Kowalski can see so closely and from a vantage point that 99 percent of us will never experience, but that they can’t reach.
