Gravity

In his review of the new film Gravity, starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, Roger Ebert has this to say: “If Gravity were half as good as I think it is, I'd still consider it one of the great moviegoing experiences of my life, thanks to the precision and beauty of its filmmaking.” That’s a pretty heady comment, topped only if he’d said he’d consider it THE greatest moviegoing experience of his life. That’s what I’d say. The plot is as simple as the plot of 127 Hours: one person’s battle to survive a situation in which death is almost inevitable. In 127 Hours, Aron Ralston, played by James Franco, has to cut off his right arm to save himself from a boulder pinning him to a canyon wall. In Gravity, Dr. Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, has to somehow make her way from the destroyed space shuttle where she and Matt Kowalsky, played by George Clooney, were working to adjust the Hubble Space Telescope. Space debris has destroyed the shuttle and the two, tethered together, make the journey to the International Space Station, using Kowalsky’s thruster pack to get them there. But when they arrive, they see that one of the Soyuz re-entry capsules is gone and the other is tangled in its re-entry chute, making it useless as a means for them to return to earth. Ryan becomes entangled in a chute cord

but Kowalsky’s momentum is pulling them away from the station. He detaches himself from her, allowing her to pull herself back to the station while he simply drifts away. Both are nearly out of oxygen. She manages to enter the station, finds that the second Soyuz shuttle is out of fuel, and resigns herself to death, with no radio contact with Houston or with Kowalsky, who she now knows is dead. I’ll leave the rest of the story for you to see for yourself when you go to this wonderful film. The plot is simple, the tension almost overwhelming, the scenery breathtaking, the special effects are really special, especially in the 3-D version. I now know what it would be like to be up in space, no longer tethered to Earth, weightless and scared to death.