“Gravity”

Houston, I have a problem. I want to review Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, but I can’t.

The truth is, I’m lost for words, incapable of communicating my complex reaction to Sandra Bullock’s intense, emotional performance, to the streamlined elegance of both plot and storytelling, to the incomparable majesty of the overall visual concept and art direction, to the well-conceived 3D that’s both brilliantly executed and an essential part of the storytelling. I can’t find the right way to tell you just how effective are Cuarón’s trademark long takes, how truly groundbreaking are Framestore’s visual effects, or how powerful is the deeply immersive soundtrack, scored by Steven Price. I’d like to tell you how I’ve spent the last month desperately trying to avoid spoilers (the film only just opened here in the UK). I’d like to tell you that I knew I was going to see something special, a visual feast, a technological triumph, but that I hadn’t expected to be so gripped that I carved fingernail-marks in my palms, so moved that my heart swelled almost out my chest. Most of all, that I hadn’t expected to leave my seat feeling triumphant. I want to tell you all these things and more, but I can’t.

Gravity has left me speechless.