A Review of “Gravity (2013)”

 

I remember deciding to watch this movie in cinemas because critics were all praising it as one of the best movies of that year. I watched it in IMAX 3D and remember being blown away by the movie. It won: Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing at the Oscars which is a lot of awards. The synopsis is “Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a medical engineer on her first shuttle mission. Her commander is veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney), helming his last flight before retirement. Then, during a routine spacewalk by the pair, disaster strikes: The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Ryan and Matt stranded in deep space with no link to Earth and no hope of rescue. As fear turns to panic, they realize that the only way home may be to venture further into space”. I’ve decided to rewatch it on a whim but this time on my home TV. The question is if this movie is overrated or deserving of its accolades.

Let’s talk about the concept first, it’s great. A survival movie in space, with no monsters or anything like that, is such a great concept that has not been done before or since its release. The movie perfectly illustrates the horror but also the beauty of space in a way that surprisingly meshes well together.

On that note of the beauty, the cinematography is amazing. A lot of amazing cinematography is usually using real shots but Gravity does it all through CGI. It shouldn’t work as CGI is quite obvious and bad CGI can even take you out of the movie but Gravity doesn’t “fall” in that category. There are a lot of gorgeous shots that feel like paintings and this is partially thanks to the amazing visual effects. The set design for the space ships are claustrophobic and further emphasise the loneliness within this movie. The score is great and elevates the tension in the scenes where the score is prominent but during the more hopeful scenes, the score is more orchestral and beautiful. The movie doesn’t rely on the score too much and sometimes just lets the silence of space or the breathing of the astronauts to suck the audience into the movie and it works. 

The movie is visually spectacular but what about the characters and story? The movie is revolved around Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) who is our point of view character. For the most part, the movie makes us care about her because of the situation she is in and that is fine. However, the director (Alfonso Cuarón) decided to include a scene that elaborates on Ryan Stone’s backstory on Earth. This is a good choice as it makes the audience more sympathetic with her and more understanding of why her personality is what it is or why she does certain actions or choices in the movie. Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) is a sort of anchor character that support Ryan throughout the movie. He has a contrasting personality to Ryan as he is funny and charismatic yet due to being more experienced is also one who guides Ryan. I like the dynamic between the two of them and when both of them are interacting it’s funny or heartwarming.

I also have to praise Sandra Bulluck as she does a great job in carrying this movie. Her performance whenever she is struggling in space feels genuine and I can feel the fear and panic just from the tone of her voice. She also delivers in the emotional moments that bring the scene to life. She was deserving of that best actress nomination at the Oscars. George Clooney does a pretty good job as well. Although, he mostly just plays Matt as the witty and charming guy. I do like it when the two are together, George overshadows Sandra which sounds weird but that is exactly what it should be in terms of who their characters are and what the plot is asking.

I don’t have many flaws with the movie that aren’t just nitpicking but I do think the fact that Dr Ryan Stone seems to constantly panic in the first half of the movie kind of weird. Dr Ryan Stone just seems to not know the basics of being in space so know it all Matt Kowalsky constantly has to tell her stuff that I think she should’ve known. From a movie perspective, I get why this choice was made so that the audience can easily understand things about space but it could’ve handled way better in my opinion. Additionally, we get some backstory on Dr Ryan Stone but we don’t get anything on Matt which I find a bit odd and lessens the impact of a certain scene. Unfortunately, I do think a lot of the impact this movie has is sadly lost because I am not watching it in a cinema. You could argue that with a lot of movies but for me watching this throughout certainly made me think “this would be way better in a cinema”.

In conclusion, I still really enjoyed the movie. Yes, the movie is impressive because of its style but in terms of substance, it certainly is lacking. However, the movie is just so visually spectacular that I don’t mind it. Furthermore, a lot of great movies such as “Dunkirk” and “1917” do similar things to Gravity and they are both great movies as well. Gravity still is one of the best space movies to have come out in the last 20 years. I feel this movie accomplishes a lot with visual effects and space cinematography. A lot of people might not be talking about this movie anymore but for me, I certainly will still remember it.