He’s been there once and he enjoyed it so much that he has decided to return. That is right, George Clooney is back on the big screen this autumn — in space. Unlike Steven Soderbergh’s 2002 film Solaris starring Clooney, Gravity is a brand new script written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón, his first film in seven years.
Set in space, Gravity follows the progress of astronaut Matt Kowalsky (Clooney) — a veteran serving his last mission — and medical engineer Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) — a rookie on her first Space Shuttle outing. The film is set for release on October 4th in the Unites States, therefore we do not know much about the plot at the time of writing other that what is shown in the recently unveiled teaser trailer (below): whilst carrying out a spacewalk — activities conducted by an astronaut outside his/her spacecraft — Kowalsky and Stone’s shuttle explodes leaving both space inhabitants stranded.
There have been countless films creates depicting helpless individuals trapped in space — either on a planet or in a shuttle. Recently, Apollo 18 graced our screens: a fictional portrayal of events after the cancelled Apollo 18 mission. Before that, Duncan Jones’ impeccable debut film Moon starring Sam Rockwell carried the mystique and tension of the stuck in space scenario. Going even further back, Event Horizon, Silent Running and Alien are all examples that the stranded in space genre — although still intriguing — is not a new one.
However, the commonality between all of the aforementioned films with which Gravity does not appear to share is that the helpless characters were trapped in a spaceship or on a planet, whereas Cuarón has delivered Clooney and Bullock to us suspended and floating in space. All signs point towards this being the case for the vast majority of the motion picture, which is something I personally have not seen before.
The trailer offers very little in the way of plot development, but a whole lot in regards to visuals, which are simply stunning. This should not come as a surprise to those who have seen Cuarón’s last outing in the director’s chair, Children of Men, which encapsulated and illustrated a dystopian Earth both effortlessly and beautifully. He was also the mastermind behind the highly regarded third act in the Harry Potter film franchise: Prisoner of Azkaban.
With a similar budget to Children of Men (Children of Men came in at around $76 million and Gravity has hit the $80 million mark) and with two very accomplished and impressive actors at the helm (albeit after a number of cast changes — Robert Downey Jr and Natalie Portman were once the leading candidates), Gravity has the potential to blow audiences away. Having originally been scheduled for a 2012 release and been pushed back a year to 2013, I think it is about time the Gravity shuttle was grounded so that we can all witness Alfonso Cuarón at work once again.
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