MOVIE REVIEW: GRAVITY: A visual triumph that lacks a movie of substance to go with it.

 *** SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the film, the final two paragraphs of this review will discuss the ending of the film in detail.You've been warned. ***

I must confess up front that I didn't quite grasp the transformative hype that Gravity was receiving in the run up to its release last weekend. The trailers lacked suspense and frankly, I just didn't get it. However, I am a fan of Alfonso Curan dating back to Y tu Mama Tambien and Prisoner of Askaban ranks as my favorite of the Harry Potter films. He is a visionary behind the camera and crafts ominous worlds that draw you into darkness in a way that I think offers a unique voice for film making. Through that prism I defied my own instincts and plunked down the full IMAX experience price to see a 90 minute film that in the advertising felt like it was little more than Open Water in space.

The Set Up: The film centers on astronauts Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) who are set adrift in space after a major accident detaches them from their space shuttle. It goes on to chronicle how the two work together as they search for a way to survive. 

The Result: This film is meant to be seen in 3D and IMAX. If you don't see it in the theater in some form, the beauty and point is essentially lost. This is not a movie that will translate to DVD and small screen. All of the the optics and esthetics that make it special will simply not hold up. It was worth my time and money in the way seeing a special art exhibit is. In my opinion, if you're looking for an engaging film that offers deeper meaning, this isn't it.

The Good
This is unquestionably a visual masterpiece. What Curan and his director of photography, Emmanuel Lubezki achieve is the equivalent of a large scale art installation that happens to use the cinema as it's vehicle and display. Hands down this is the best use of 3D technology certainly since the flight sequence in Avatar and I would argue ever. Curan and his crew have a clear objective to create a sensory experience that is almost completely isolating while still awe inspiring. I was grateful that the 3D was predominantly used to simulate depth perception that I imagine would mimic the limitlessness of outer space. As a result you are drawn into the world inhabited by the astronauts in a way that physically takes hold. Suspense is created through the absence of sound in key moments and a smart technique that literally offers the audience Stone's point of view. Three sequences that are a direct consequence to the tragedy at the core of the movie are mesmerizing. All drive the plot forward and serve as transitions for the movie to pivot towards its eventual conclusion.

The use and absence of sound throughout the film is brilliantly nuanced and lends an authenticity to the sensory experience that is haunting. I appreciated this in spite of a score that at times simply felt heavy handed and loud. In fact the sound techniques directly connected to the film are carried from the opening shot to the very final moment of the credits. It's a complete thread that will be missed by most, but for a geek like me was a flourish that marked the difference between tying a knot versus an artful bow on a gift. 

The Bad:
Pretty much everything else. The script is mediocre at best and often feels trite when not being deliberately manipulative. Speaking of manipulative, there is a sequence with Bullock that marks the transition into the final third of the film that nearly made me laugh out loud it was so heavy handed. It smacks you over the head with obvious symbolism that is meant to add depth to Bullock's character and propel the viewer to the final portion of the film. To me it felt like a cut scene from Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The attempts to round out the characters while they are in peril fall flat, perhaps because we have no context for them prior to arriving at this crisis. As an audience we are dropped into their story moments before disaster strikes and as a result we are given little to care about beyond the immediacy of the life and death situation. This makes for adequate suspense in the first third of the movie, but quickly wanes as we meander to its conclusion. The plot is extremely thin and quickly becomes horribly repetitive. The tactics and strategies employed to survive aren't new and they lack the urgency that movies like Apollo 13 so wonderfully captured. I am usually drawn to stories that revel in a solitary journey of physical and spiritual self. This film, for all it's visual splendor doesn't come close to achieving the emotional isolation that you would expect from a film like this and sadly the story never rises to meet the visual astonishment. The result kept me at arms length over the course of movie. While I remained curious about the outcome, I never became invested in it. There has been a lot of chatter about Bullock's turn as Ryan Stone being Oscar worthy. I just don't see it. She's fine with what little she's given and the same could be said for George Clooney. Both are hampered not by the logistics and technology, but by lack of fundamental storytelling. However lack of script doesn't change the fact that there is nothing extraordinary to be found in Bullock's performance. It isn't remotely in the same league as the work we saw from Adrian Brody in The Pianist or even James Franco in 127 Hours which is a shame, because Gravity offers the rare instance for a female voice was to be the one in extreme isolation and peril. It is a shame none of it was explored. Which is why after a final 60 minutes that carried a great deal of repetition the ending was simply infuriating and the final 5 minutes a waste of time.

 ***** SPOILER ALERT ********* SPOILER ALERT *****

 

***** SPOILER ALERT ********* SPOILER ALERT *****

The Ending:
Independent of the poor script the movie does actually take Bullock's character on a journey that is less about survival and more about acceptance and reconciliation.Viewers are left to draw the parallel between Stone losing her daughter and her efforts to survive this catastrophic event. The set up was clear but never quite gelled for me. From the moment she enters the second shuttle and recoils into fetal position it is as though for the back end of the film she is reborn with a determination to fight that feels out of character. Knowing she survived her daughter's death but ceased to really go on living makes her final push in the movie important. That is why I found myself hoping she would not survive the final act of the film. For me the strongest sequence is when she is pushing towards reentry to earth, surrounded by fire she finds peace. Having fought for survival her fate is no longer in her hands, she finds reconciliation in the knowledge that she will begin living again if she survives and she will have made peace with her life should she die in that moment. It is the most powerful moment of the film and needed nothing more to resonate. The film could have ended right there. I personally would have been fine with an ambiguous ending right at the point of re-entering the earth's atmosphere with the flames around her and then having all the sound coms, including Houston come back on as we fade to black. Her journey ended when she found peace, not when she survived the landing. That is why everything after re-entry pissed me off. The entire water escape was extraneous. Seriously a frog was the only living creature in that water? She went from perilous depths to waters so shallow she was quickly able to make her way to shore? Nope, it felt tacked on by the distributors of the movie. It was cheap and broke what little emotional resonance the film had managed to muster. 

In the end, Gravity will be remembered for its cinematic achievements that are deserved and fantastic. The film will not go on to join the canon of movies that serve as a commentary for how we value life in the broad scope of the world and our small place in it.

MOVIE REVIEW: Fruitvale Station, why this portrait of a young black man MUST be seen.

 

There are seminal films that explore the human condition and specifically the realities of urban America. Do the Right Thing and Boyz in the Hood immediately come to mind. I believe we can now add Fruitvale Station to the mix of movies that create an image that flies in the face of media stereotypes and more importantly offers an honest look beyond the headlines. Fruitvale Station is an intimate look at the life of Oscar Grant in the 24 hour run up to his untimely and horrifying murder.

The Story
In 2009, Oscar Grant was fatally shot in the back by a transit officer at Fruitvale Station of the BART system shortly after midnight on News Years Eve. He was on his way home from celebrating in San Francisco with friends. In an altercation captured on cell phone video the case garnered national outrage and attention due to the senseless horror of his death. He left behind a 4-year old daughter, a family and a life unfulfilled. He was was 22 years old.

As a movie
Fruitvale Station is a difficult, heartbreaking, outrage inducing, honest portrait of a young man who was so much more than the sum of his parts. First time filmmaker Ryan Coogler offers a quiet peek into a moment in the life of Oscar Grant during the 24 hours that precede his death. The moving script was written from first hand accounts and countless family interviews ultimately providing the audience a riveting look at this flawed, loving, angry young man who is trying to find his path in life.

This is simply one of the most painful movies I have watched. Knowing the outcome going in does not buffer that pain. On the contrary it heightens the inevitable outcome of this life being snuffed out at the precise moment you see its potential. Coogler doesn't seek to build Grant up as merely a victim of profiling nor does he sanctify him. Instead he directs us through an unvarnished look at a day in the life of a young black man. One who is a father, a son, an individual struggling with balancing bravado, ego and stereotypes that would all seek to define him.

To understand the sadness and outrage, viewers need to be able to glimpse through the prism of what that community of people sees. In Oscar Grant we get a young man struggling to pivot from the mistakes he made in his desperation to carve out a life not only for his daughter, but for himself. He wants to be better, he's just unsure of how. Over the course of the film we learn that Grant (marvelously played by Michael B. Jordan) loves his girlfriend, but has cheated on her, is trying to go straight after serving time in prison for dealing drugs, but was fired from his supermarket job for repeatedly showing up late. It is a typical two steps forward, one step back dance most people endure in their 20s. In Fruitvale Station we get a full idea of the man, not just the circumstances that placed him in an altercation that ended his life and the tragedy that he is never afforded the time or space to overcome those mistakes.

This movie does not work without the extraordinary performance of Michael B. Jordan as Oscar Grant. Jordan quietly (and often in tight frame) captures the nuance around how quickly emotions rise into physical response and are repressed as his temper cools. His scenes with Octavia Spencer, playing Grant's mother are truthful, the image of a tired woman who loves her son but is at the breaking point surrounding his choices. The interplay with his young daughter give important insight that Oscar wasn't the only victim that night. Through her we see how much Oscar Grant had to live for and the innocence he desperately tried to preserve in her. 

The re-enactment of the murder is excruciating to watch and it should be. However I appreciate Cooger's restraint in how he shot the series of scenes forcing us to see without graphically sensationalizing the moment. The closing moments of the film will leave you emotionally distraught and in my case haunted. It is a terrific piece of film making and needs to be seen.


As a conversation
I almost didn't see Fruitvale Station. I thought long and hard about subjecting myself to the raw emotions I knew it would invoke based solely on the story. Then I realized if we don't look in the mirror at the hard societal truths we can't make progress as a society. I don't get a pass on that mirror simply because I have a predisposition to be empathetic.

In response to the coincidence of the film opening in the wake of the George Zimmerman verdict, Ryan Coogler said of the public depiction for both Trayvon Martin and Oscar Grant "They're either a martyr and a saint, or everything they ever did was wrong. The truth is more complicated." In Fruitvale Station he succeeds at showing us that complexity.

If you want to have an honest conversation about race and bias turn off the likes of MSNBC, Fox and CNN along with their combined punditry and arm chair sociology. Instead go see Fruitvale Station with a group of colleagues or friends. Take a look at the honest portraits of the struggles, flawed decency and humanity of what young men of color actually look like. Then reconcile it with the images you see and hear through media everyday. If we don't filter what is fiction vs. what is real what dystopia will we be passing along for our children? Worse than that, we will continue to condemn an entire class of young people to a stereotype that leaves them not caught between a rock and a hard place, but in the cross-hairs of a gun and dead on the cement floor.