I'd heard about Gravity, I read about it, I'd seen the mind blowing trailer, let's face it , the footage was rather spectacular, even at my age and my experience with films, I still get swept away with hype sometimes, after all isn't that the point of a marketing campaign?. I was even interested in the whole " 3-D " aspect of it and how it was the first film to really explore the artistic possibilities of the medium, rather than tack it on to the film as a cynical ploy to dissuade pirates. ( If that meant that I wouldn't have to see Johnny Depp pretend to a pissed up reject from the sunset strip again, I'd want every film to be in 3-D).
Yet as it was screened for me and my fellow group of bitter students, I felt a sudden feeling of " this isn't very good " creeping in. I felt like i had "sold out " a little bit, seeing as I had raised my hand in favour of
" Gravity" when we could have watched " It's A Wonderful Life ". within twenty minutes I regretted this decision, I could have watched, what is regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, at Christmas on a cinema screen with a group of relatively like-minded people, but I decided to go for the eye-candy, current release, knowing that If i saw it now, I wouldn't have to pay out for a screening, seeing as the film was free.
Amidst the "Boos" and " Hisses" and inadvertent laughter targeted at the events on screen, I decided first of all, that I really couldn't see what the fuss was all about!. I did'nt really feel one way or another about it, it's was certainly becoming tedious to me and a bit repetitive but it i did'nt hate it.
...something bothered me about it though and as usual my brain decided to take it's sweet ass time to decide what it was that I did'nt like about it.
Then it suddenly became clear to me!. It's a pandering sexist and condescending take on what could've been a genuine attempt by Hollywood to portray a woman solving her own problems.
Here is a woman , who for the most part manages to rise above her relative inexperience as an astronaut to survive and prosper in a situation where 99% of the human population would just fill their underwear with bodily pudding. there is even an attempt to portray her as a tortured and damaged individual, an obvious attempt to give instill some depth and humanity into the character. Yet after all this, even after they kill off Buzz Lightyear...i mean George Clooney...they have him return in what be one of the most blundering attempts at a cinematic "pep-talk" I have ever witnessed. Sandra bullock has run out of options, all hope is lost and she has given up. she has turned up the CO2 levels so she can slip into unconsciousness and die peacefully, yet at her darkest moment, who should arrive but " George- Batman, Peacemaker, Billy Ocean ( or some other ocean bloke)- Clooney to tell her that " she can do it and to not give up!". So after all this groundwork, you're willing to kill yourself until a man tells you not to...worse than that he's dead, it's a dream sequence, so it's now the voice of a man in her head telling her what to do and it's George Clooney!. the manliest of all Hollywood alpha males. Well Done, here's to the 21st century when it arrives. Christ, even Lois Lane in Man of Steel, a film inherently man-centric, the clue is in the title did a better job of portraying a what an independent modern working woman should behave like and that script was horrible!
Maybe I'm looking at this film too much in the wrong way and I should just see it as the " vehicle" that it is meant to be. that's always going to be a default argument for a big budget Hollywood movie, that it doesn't need to have any substance or any anything deeper than it's surface value.
That's true it doesn't, but for a film that has got so much critical praise, I'm baffled by how stupid it actually is.
I'm sure the makers are really considering the political and social economics of the film all the way to the bank but It's not going to stop me and my empty bank account from going on this tirade!
