Gravity

I have to admit that when I first saw the trailer for Gravity, I thought it looked stupid. People just floating and spinning in space? I didn’t care to watch it at all. However, much to my surprise, people absolutely went crazy over it when it started playing in theaters. Curious, I finally decided to go see it, and wow, I was amazed by this film. The effects and editing were stunning. Even though the plotline and characters were basic and simply, the movie took my breath away. !!!!Warning, spoilers below!!!!

   
   Gravity is about a mission specialist named Dr. Ryan Stone (played by Sandra Bullock) who is on her very first space shuttle mission. During the mission led by the commander of the team, Matt Kowalski, Mission Control in Houston warns them that a Russian missile used on a defunct satellite has caused a chain reaction of space debris and that it was heading straight towards them. When the high-speed debris hits the Explorer (their shuttle), Dr. Stone is separated from the others, spinning through space. She eventually finds Kowalski, and they head back towards the shuttle only to find that it is damaged beyond repair and that all the crew is dead. They then begin to make their way to the International Space Station. When they finally arrive, they realize that the parachute had already been deployed, making it useless for returning to Earth. As they head off to the Chinese space station, Stone’s leg gets tangled in parachute cords, and despite her protests, Kowalski removes himself from the tether keeping them together to save her from drifting away. Many people say that his character was killed off too soon, but I honestly thought that it fit perfectly with the story and had Kowalski lived through the entire film, it wouldn’t have been as impactful.

From this point on, Dr. Stone goes through space on her own, trying to get home. She must face many different obstacles, and we see her spirit slowly breaking. As she is in the ISS, attempts to contact other space stations, but instead accidentally making contact with a random man on Earth. After listening to him cooing to a baby, she decides to shut down the oxygen in the cabin to create a painless suicide as she believed she would never return home. However, as she begins to lose consciousness, Kowalski visits her in a vision, and this gives her the strength to keep going, in which she eventually makes it back to Earth.

What really got me on this movie was the emotion. There wasn’t much dialogue or many characters in this film, and yet, it was able to connect with the viewer’s feelings. When our main character struggled and felt lonely or depressed, you couldn’t help but feel it too. And in the very end, when she takes her first on land again, you feel uplifted and powerful as Dr. Stone does. The whole movie was an emotional rollercoaster, and it was very easy to identify with the protagonist. The fact that the movie narrowed it down to one characters really helped it in the long run. The effects and high-quality images of space were also brilliant and beautiful. Gravity really is one of those films that you must see in theaters to really experience it to its greatest potential.