Watch This Space

GRAVITY (B) - I had a good time at the movies this weekend. I was transported into space by Alfonso Cuaron's ambitious, if seriously flawed, fable about a pair of astronauts (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) stranded in space with little hope of surviving.

This is not a great film. (And we can't say we weren't warned. A week ago I noted the red flags that came with this project.) But it's skillfully shot and is so harrowing at times that it takes your breath away. (I instinctively reached for an inhaler a few times.)

The screenplay here is mostly a flimsy collection of cliches. Both characters -- Bullock's Ryan Stone and Clooney's Matt Kowalski (yeah, right) -- come saddled with hoary back stories. He's on his last mission before retirement (ho-hum, I hope things don't go horribly wrong up there!) and Stone, on her first mission, has been recently slammed by the death of a child. And, let's face it, astronauts have been trapped in space plenty of times. Cuaron (who wrote the script with his son) doesn't bring much new to the table here storywise, though his special effects are out of this world. (Sorry, occasionally I let slip cringeworthy blurbs.) I didn't see this in 3-D (though you can't help noticing those effects throughout), but Cuaron expertly draws you in from the outset with a spectacular opening sequence that seems to be one continuous floating, rotating, disorienting shot. He and his mega-budget tricks never let up in crafting a world of wonder.

This project likely would have been an embarrassing joke without Bullock and her terrific performance, especially during the homestretch when she carries the entire film after Clooney goes away for a while. Bullock is extremely likeable and believable as a rookie thrust into a crisis. She freaks out, she thumbs through manuals, she mutters to herself, she sweetly contemplates her mortality. When, exasperated at one point, she utters "I hate space," it's a laugh-out-loud line that breaks the tension and works for her character. Clooney, on the other hand, is as bad as I've seen him in quite a while; he does nothing more here than play a self-aware, wisecracking George Clooney. It's a major misstep for the film.

For a while, Stone and Kowalski are tethered together as they cavort outside their damaged spacecraft, and the symbolism of the umbilical cord (with a gender reversal of the father figure) is unmistakable. Cuaron drives that home with a shot of Stone floating in the fetal position, in profile, as if she's in the womb. The director lingers on that shot a beat too long, until you feel his sharp elbow in your ribcage. But you can't begrudge him that obvious sight gag, because his ending is a clever completion of that thought; it's even somewhat profound in a way the rest of the movie doesn't prepare the viewer for. It's Bullock's finest moment.

For this all to work as a movie, you truly have to suspend disbelief, shut down your brain a bit, and accept the fact that you're in Hollywoodland -- give in to the absurdities on display. (Scientists are having a field day with all of the story's technical flaws, a few of which are rather ridiculous.) But if you're willing to go with the flow and play make-believe, you will be rewarded with a gripping film.


POSTSCRIPT

Correspondent Lionfish summed "Gravity" up this way: "With a lot of editing, that could be a pretty good music video -- with better music, of course."