[Screen capture shots which had accompanied this post have been removed due to non-specific legal threats from Warner Bros.]So, have you been anticipating Gravity like a lot of the rest of us? The science-fiction drama is Alfonso Cuarón's (A Little Princes, Y Tu Mamá También, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Children of Men) latest feature, which he cowrote with his brother Jónas. The $85M production was supposed to release late 2012, but the opening date was pushed back almost a full year. Angelina Jolie's name was attached to the project and when she passed, Natalie Portman entered the scene. She finally turned it down and the attention shifted to Sandra Bullock. With so few other female box-office draws, I can't imagine there having been many more options. She signed on, but would lose Robert Downey, Jr, who backed out due to delays. But, once George Clooney was on board, it was full steam ahead. I had a lot of misconceptions about what this film was going to be. When I first heard about it, I pictured 2001: A Spacey Odyssey (I was way off). And, even having read the script, I imagine I couldn't visualize the full extent of what this movie will offer. For what it is on paper, though, is this is an intimate story told in outer space and rooted in some kind of degree of present-day reality. For the purposes of this post, there is one spoiler, which isn't huge (it happens 50% of the way into the movie) and most people give it away in a simple logline, but feel warned. Also note that the opinions expressed on this screenplay are based on a 2009 version, and the box office and Oscar segments are pure conjecture.
In a Nutshell
After a major calamity, astronaut Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) is trapped in space and must find a way back to earth. The script starts out with her and a team working on preparing the Hubble Telescope for reentry to Earth along with the shuttle Atlantis. It's theorized that the Russian launched a missile to destroy one of its own satellites, when debris flying everywhere at rocket speed destroys everything in its path. After a series of setbacks and losing her whole crew, Stone must make her way to the damaged Chinese station Tiangong 8 to use one of their escape pods to make it back to Earth, and claim her life and freedom.
Plot Summary (spoilers)
[Note: the script was somewhat technical, so please forgive me if I don’t get everything correct.] It’s explained through placards that the setting is 600 km above Earth, with temperature fluctuations between 120 and -100 degrees celsius. There is no oxygen or air pressure, life cannot be sustained, and sound gets swallowed by a vacuum (nice hat tip to Alien: “In space, no one can hear you scream”). Orbiting around the earth 300 km above Earth, is China’s Tiangong 8 Space Station. At 500 km, is the International Space Station (ISS) revolving around the planet.
At 600 km, on his last mission, supervising astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), an old hand, controls his propulsion jetpack to maneuver himself around NASA’s Atlantis Space Shuttle while inspecting the shielding tiles on its surface and informs the command station back in Houston (voiced by Eric Michels) that the shuttle is ready for entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Meanwhile, astronauts Shariff Dasari and medical engineer Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), on their second and first missions respectively, only secured by safety tethers, tighten bolts to fasten the Hubble Telescope to Atlantis to establish a remote connection between Houston and the telescope and activate its solar panels. Stone has difficulty making a connection between a robotic arm and Houston. In order to fix the matter, she must replace a condensation plate, requiring more time. ISS (voiced by Basher Savage) assists by offering to start moving materials to save them the time Stone is going to need to fix the arm. Atlantis Captain Arlene Evans agrees to the suggestion. Stone ends up rescuing a loosened bolt Matt loses.
Suddenly, Houston informs ISS and Atlantis to abort their mission, and they order the astronauts to follow suit. Stone ignores the command, but finishes her task in the nick of time and the arm gradually retreats back to Atlantis. Arlene orders Matt to disengage the telescope and he enlists the help of Shariff. Houston reports that a Russian satellite was hit by a missile, likely by its own country to put it out of commission. As a consequence, debris begins flying everywhere, causing a chain reaction. Matt and Shariff detach the telescope from Atlantis and send it off into space. Atlantis and ISS lose connection with Houston. Foreign satellite material from various sources begin to fly closer to Atlantis, creating nearby explosions. Debris hits Atlantis, severing contact with the astronauts, as well as Shariff’s helmet, rendering him unconscious and eventually dead.
Another piece separates the robotic arm from Atlantis, sending it and Stone, unable to release her tether, spinning off into space. While trying to implement a drill attached to her, she causes a tear in her suit, compromising her oxygen and pressure levels. She finally breaks her harness and floats away from the arm in an opposing direction. She panics as Matt tries to establish a location and all she can see is blackness. She finally spots Earth, as well as Tiangong 8 and ISS, before they disappear. After she loses radio contact with Matt, she sees the moon. Wearing the propelling unit, he soon spots and saves her and she reports her levels to him. His advise to her about the rip in her suit: “Put your hand over it and press against it as hard as you can.” (!!!) With her other hand, she holds a tether attached to Matt.
Atlantis is useless to them, so they must make plans to travel to the ISS. But, before they do so, they retrieve Shariff’s body to place in Atlantis’ airlock. Inside the shuttle, Stone discovers that Arlene and her crewmember are dead and the cabin is destroyed. While Stone looks for duct tape (!!!), Matt radios ISS to prepare Soyuz escape pods for reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. Once she gets her hands on it, she “can’t lift the edge with [her] gloves on (!!!),” but is able to do so with a ruler. With Stone tethered to him, Matt begins to make their way towards ISS with the propelling unit. They engage in small talk, and Stone replenishes her oxygen levels. Not realizing they’re approaching, one of the Soyuz deploys and leaves them behind. The other is damaged beyond being useable for reentry. As they approach ISS, the crash into its side from the trajectory and speed of the propulsion unit. Matt tries to untangle Stone from the deployed parachute of the Soyuz, but misses her and drifts off into space with only a few minutes of oxygen left. There is no way for Stone to save him.
While he prepares for his fate, he instructs Stone to use the Soyuz to travel to Tiangong 8 to retrieve a similar vehicle called a Shenzhou to reenter Earth’s atmosphere. She enters the airlock of the ISS and depressurizes the cabin. She removes her helmet to take in the oxygen when it is as good of a time as any, and then removes her suit revealing “only underwear and a T-shirt” (shout out to Ripley circa Alien and Aliens, hey!). While exploring, she locates the Japanese module, which is on fire. She finds water to hydrate and then makes her way to the main console of the Zarya Module, where she tries to unsuccessfully establish contact with Houston. After she starts throwing objects out of anger and frustration, the alarm system informs her that the fire is expanding. She struggles to protect herself with an extinguisher and moves to the docking module, where she grabs a new space suit and prepares to exit with the Soyuz.
She manages to engage the craft and drift away from ISS, but the ropes of the parachute remain connected to the main station. They begin to float towards each other, and before it’s too late, she employs the propellers. However, they remain connected still. Tethered to the Soyuz, she uses a drill to loosen the bolts and disconnect the rope. All the while, she must dodge debris that has begun flying around again. ISS is hit which results in an impact producing a hole that sucks the fire right out of it.
As she reboards the Soyuz, the ISS splits in half after a crash. A tiny morsel hits her fuel tank creating a hole which reseals itself from the escaped liquid freezing. “I hate space,” Stone comments to herself. Losing fuel, she manipulates the thrust systems and sets her trajectory towards Tiangong 8, which is orbiting at a lower level than it should be. The engine module catches fire and she engages separation of the modules, leaving her in the cabin detached from the airlock, set in a direction where she will miss Tiangong 8. She makes radio contact with an elderly man speaking an unintelligible language. Though they can’t understand each other, Stone finds the man’s voice consoling. She loses contact with him and breaks down in tears. Thumbing through the operating manual of the Soyuz, she learns the craft has a breaking system, which she implements to improve her trajectory towards Tiangong 8. Once closer, armed with the fire extinguisher, she opens the hatch and is sucked out into space. Injuring herself and enduring a great struggle, she utilizes the extinguisher until it’s empty, and, eventually, manages to establish a hold on the station.
She enters Tiangong 8’s airlock and depressurizes the cabin. She takes off her helmet and navigates the station to the docking module of the Shenzhou. She has a limited amount of time, as the station is dropping elevation towards Earth’s atmosphere. On her way, she saves a live amphibian, “No frog stays behind.” She boards the escape pod and takes a series of guesses to get the craft up and running. Flying debris finishes off the station, as Stone makes her escape. She breaks through the atmosphere and deploys the parachute. She celebrates and the thrust system softens her fall, as she lands in a lake.
She releases internal smoke by launching off the hatch cover. However, the Shenzhou takes on water. She swims from the bottom of the lake, but her spacesuit drags her down. She watches the frog escape, as she is about to become ensnared in the parachute. She frees herself from her spacesuit and swims up to the surface and makes her way to shore. She is finally free.
Script Review (spoilers)
Much of the movie involves the astronauts dodging ricocheting debris from damaged satellites and vessels and tightening or loosening bolts. There were technical logistics one must piece together as best as they can, that wasn't the easiest thing to do the first reading for those lacking in the imagination and proficiency departments while suffering from short-attention span, like myself. The film is reported to open with an uninterrupted seventeen-minute scene, with many extended takes to follow (a minuscule total of 156 shots for a two-hour runtime). And once Stone is on her own, the already sparse dialogue naturally diminishes some. Most of her lines are radioed into a vacuum (for all Stone knows). She helps explain what is going on while describing what kind of state she is in. I loved this conceit, as it helped me keep up with what was going on without being too redundant or obnoxious (though, I wonder how it will play out when it's up on its feet).
Hope, perseverance, and belief in one’s self and the most positive outcome possible even in the face of grave and impossible circumstances are the central themes here. It's Castaway meets Apollo 13 in this survival tale confronting one's reality. Like The Dark Knight series, Cuarón takes a normally fantastical story and roots it in a degree of reality. While there are some absurd moments (the use of duct tape is funny because we're in space here, even though the material has the reputation of being able to hold together anything) and several bullets dodged by an inch or nick of time, for the movie's purposes, I, as a layman, felt like, okay, this *might/could* actually happen.
Stone is often vulnerable, and fearful, but also optimistic and carries with her a healthy sense of humor. Bullock was actually perfectly cast for this role and it's hard to imagine Jolie or Portman in the same part. I'm not sure if she'll do anything that we haven't seen before, and I'm doubtful that a strong performance in an usual setting will get the recent Oscar winner back in the race. The movie must be a huge success in order for that to happen. Additionally, though Downey would have been fine, Clooney fits Kowalsky's swagger to a tee. This is crazy considering the version I read was from before their names were ever mentioned during casting.There is also heavy symbolism of the transition from the long dead Cold War to China as the world's newest super power. The U.S. team is inadvertently almost entirely annihilated by Russian activity (or it's speculated). To boot, the surviving cosmonaut(s) or perhaps astronauts, unknowingly or not, leave them behind, and they're left to depend on the Chinese station.
While I was expecting a different film, I still very much enjoyed reading the script. The visuals are going to be sick, I'm sure. However, the movie is being converted to 3D, and I haven't been sold on the idea of dimly lit films (it is set in space, so the background most of the time is going to be black) being presented in anything other than traditional formats. I just haven't seen it work yet. 3D works best in daylight and full color. That's part of the reason why Avatar was so freaking successful.
Box Office Prospects
I’m pulling for this movie, an original science-fiction drama featuring a rare female protagonist. It’ll be interesting to see how audiences respond to Stone’s emotional and taxing journey to safety in a genre setting. I hope the production is a huge hit. But, will it be? It guess that it could potentially make $100 - $140M, with better international prospects. But, again, I would love it if it made much, much more.
Early Oscar Odds
Of course, many are thinking that Bullock will be back in the Oscar conversation. I honestly thought that The Blind Side was going to be it for her. I’m surprised that I’m actually considering her for another nomination. And, in another, less competitive year, I would feel stronger about her chances, even though I’ve been feeling pretty weak about them overall. The issue this year is the field is overcrowded with previous Best Actress winners. And, as I’ve mentioned, in the last twenty-two years, only two races have had more than one Best Actress winner (one of them happened to be 2008 when she won on her first nomination). Three is rare and hasn’t happened since the 1970s, and four has never occurred. With Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, and Emma Thompson being awfully strong contenders this year, I have trouble presently imagining Bullock fitting in. But, then, if the movie is a blockbuster, there can't be any question that she won't (same goes for Thompson, though Kidman, Streep, and Roberts, I imagine will have an easier time getting into the category without immense box-office showings).  |
| Bullock with her son Louis and George Clooney on set with crewmembers |
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