Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) are on a spacewalk repairing the Hubble Telescope when a deadly cloud of debris hits them. With their shuttle catastrophically damaged what follows is a tense fight for survival. 

Stone is on her first ever mission in space having just completed six months of training to become an astronaut. Her reasons for being here are not purely scientific though. She has suffered the sort of loss that thankfully is unknowable to so many people, she has lost her child who died senselessly at the age of four in an innocuous accident. Space for her is the greatest means of running away from her life, it isolates her from feeling. When disaster strikes she has to make a conscious decision to keep fighting for her own life despite the impossible odds. Kowalski is the perfect foil for Stone. An experienced astronaut who likes nothing more than to regale the team and mission control with stories of his life. But his outwardly jocular image immediately disappears when the setting requires, snapping into protocols that have been repeated hundreds of times in the knowledge that they will give them a greater chance of staying alive.

The entirety of Gravity’s taut ninety-one minute runtime follows these fascinating characters as they problem solve in one of the most beautiful, yet deadly environments imaginable and the result is infinitely compelling.

I placed Gravity as my second favourite film of 2013 and its brilliance has only risen in my estimations with subsequent watches since then. So much so that I would rank it as one of the greatest science fiction films ever made.

The plot is incredibly simple, the execution however is exceptional.

As a science fiction film one of the most important facets is how it explores human behaviour and this is achieved in such a perfect way. Stone’s life story and motivations are told to us almost as an aside whilst incredibly dramatic and dangerous things are happening. But the manner in which her motivations to live and move forward come through are expertly delivered. A line where she is told that sometimes you just have to let go, the manner in which she floats in the foetal position in an airlock and her crawling out of the water to learn to walk again are special moments in a film that quietly delivers huge dramatic impact.

Thematically the setting of space and the scenario that threatens their lives is perfect. The film makes this abundantly clear when it opens with some information about how inhospitable space is. Explaining “Life in space is impossible”.

Technically the film is a marvel. It opens with a thirteen minute oner that makes the sheer scale of space very clear whilst delivering some beautiful shots of the Earth from a distance. The manner in which the entire film brings to life the fact that these characters are in zero gravity space is superb as well. It is completely believable that this is happening. And back in 2013 when this was released and in subsequent cinema re-releases this film was available in 3D which added an even more grandiose and immense scale to it. 

The performances are also special. Sandra Bullock was nominated for Best Actress but lost out to Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine. Regardless of this fact and that Bullock has won the award previously for The Blind Side there is no doubt in my mind that this is her greatest performance. The depths of sorrow and determination that she is able to convey here are wonderful. Clooney is of course a perfect fit for the cocky but assured experienced astronaut and also rather wonderfully we have Ed Harris as Mission Control. A role that seems to fit perfectly thanks to his previous appearance in Apollo 13.

Gravity would win seven Oscars at the 2014 Academy Awards including Best Director for Alfonso Cuaron, Cinematography for Emmanuel Lubezki, Editing, Original Score for Steven Price, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects. But it would miss out on the most coveted award of Best Picture to 12 Years A Slave, a wonderful film but certainly not one I have revisited as often as Gravity.

Epic stuff.