I guess it’s time for me to release my Christmas Grinch. I am quite floored by the attention the movie Gravity is receiving as a possible Academy Award winner for 2013.
The problem with this film is that it has no story. Okay, here’s the story: Astronaut struggles for survival in malfunctioning spaceship. That’s it. There’s no character development. Virtually no character interaction. George Clooney appears early in the movie but, other than playing himself--George Clooney--which is all directors seem to require of him nowadays, he adds very little to the film.
Basically Gravity brings the viewer ninety minutes of special effects, and possible queasiness. If your intention in going to see this film is to get a sense of what it would be like to orbit around the Earth in a spaceship, you will be satisfied. The special effects are good and realistic. But you could get the same satisfaction from watching a real time video broadcast from Chris Hadfield on the ISS.
Or better yet, check out the vastly under-rated movie, 2010, made way back in 1984 which features an unforgettable sequence of a nauseated John Lithgow floating from one spinning spacecraft to another. Very impressive cinematography even today, and an infinitely better story.
Or, as another alternative, check out Ender’s Game whose portrayal of a weightless environment is just as captivating and much more imaginative plus the movie has real character interaction and an actual story.
Sandra Bullock does a creditable job in Gravity. George Clooney does his usual—just give me my pay cheque cameo—and there is lots of exploding space debris. This is hardly the stuff of Academy Awards. So why has this movie done so well at the box office? I really don’t know. I can only speculate—optimistically—that there is a renewed interest among the public in space exploration—in rising above earthbound scandal, gridlock and greed. And maybe there persists in our collective unconscious the memory that yes, indeed, we did actually send people to the moon one time, and maybe we should think about doing it again. In a way, this is what my still unpublished novel, Lunatics, is all about.
Finally, I guess the other reason I’m not such a great fan of this movie, is that they stole the title from my stage play about Isaac Newton without ever asking my permission. I could sue them, I suppose, but then again, it is Christmas.