Commentary: ‘Gravity’ Enters A Genre About Filmmaking Challenges
by Frank Martin
Everyone knows what a traditional story looks like. It has a three-act structure with characters on an arc that ultimately ends in a climax. But plenty of films break the mold by doing something completely different and unique. Rather than be a straightforward story, these films almost feel like challenges for the filmmakers, an attempt to make a film out of a unique situation that doesn’t adhere to a traditional structure. These are films like Open Water, which has characters stranded in the middle of the ocean, and 127 Hours, which details the story of Aron Ralston, a man who severed his own limb in order to save his life after an accident. Gravity follows this same trend and enters this same genre.
The film is about two astronauts on a space mission that become stranded after debris from a destroyed satellite ravages their spaceship. Lost and adrift in space, Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is eventually rescued by Matt Kowalski (George Clooney). But the two of them are far from safe. They traverse to a space station, hoping to find a way back to Earth. Unfortunately, Kowalski is lost, leaving Stone alone to save herself. After a harrowing journey to a Chinese ship, she manages to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and return to her home planet safe and sound.
At its core, Gravity is nothing more than a disaster movie set in space. Creating such a story is a challenge that derives from trying to figure out what happens next. The film never features Earth as a setting except for its closing moments. Depicting such a plot is difficult, but the film does its best to pull it off. In a similar fashion, Open Water is all about trying to create a story about individuals stuck at sea just as 127 Hours is about a man who, after being trapped for an extreme period of time, is left no other option but to amputate himself. All of these stories lack particularly expansive plots. If anything, there aren’t many developments to fuel a feature-length film, but they manage to pull it off anyway. Such premises pose challenges that allow these filmmakers to rise to the occasion of accepting them.
Gravity is now available for streaming on Prime Video.
