Gravity: Alfonso Cuarón

If James Wan's The Conjuring (2013) was the last time I was legitimately scared in a movie theater, then Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity was the last time I legitimately felt that I was going to have a panic attack in a movie theater. Gravity is an immaculate thriller about a rookie astronaut named Dr. Ryan Stone who finds herself stranded in space after random debris destroys her space shuttle. She must brave the horrific emptiness of deep space in order to reach a friendly space station so she can get back to earth. But Murphy's law keeps thwarting her at every turn. First she runs out of oxygen, then the only other surviving member of her crew sacrifices himself so she can make it to the International Space Station, then she discovers that the astronauts stationed on it had already used one of the escape modules. The only other module has its parachute prematurely deployed, making it almost useless. But there's still one last hope: a nearby Chinese space-station. But then, of course, comes more space debris...The film's pacing is feverishly relentless, throwing Dr. Stone and the audience into inescapable dilemma after inescapable dilemma. The film is only 90 minutes long but it feels more than two hours thanks in part to Cuarón's masterful use of extended, unbroken takes. The very first shot of the film must have lasted over ten minutes before its first edit. But Gravity isn't just a mere piece of entertainment. It is a fascinating mediation on human nature and spirituality. There's a scene where Dr. Ryan thinks she is going to die, so she tries to contact Mission Control via radio. However, she ends up talking to a Greenlandic Inuit fisherman. They can't understand each other...but they form a kind of bond that is both tragic and heart-breakingly beautiful. If Gravity had ended on this scene I would have been more than satisfied.

9/10

EDIT (March 16, 2014)

I had originally given the film a 9/10 because I felt that the soundtrack was too overbearing and ruined the atmosphere of certain scenes. But after watching the film again in my home, I have come to the conclusion that the film itself was not at fault. Instead, it would seem that the sound system belonging to the theater that I originally saw it in was to blame. Therefore, I have revised my score to a 10/10.

10/10