Gravity is a very good film, as any critic will not hesitate to say. Just look at the 98% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not too many movies get such a positive reception. People had their doubts, but I was never one of them, as I am an avid follower of Alfonso Cuarón and have been keeping track of this movie for a year. Cuarón is known for his dreamlike, pristine cinematography, and pat of how he gathers this feel is by combining elegant camera strokes with rarely practiced long cuts. When I found out that he was doing a film about an astronaut sent adrift, I knew that I would be in for a visually stunning and poetic film, since it was the perfect setting for him to crystallize his style and take it to its greatest extreme. As such, Gravity would be a kind of film people rarely ever got to see and be an exemplar for a slower and more pristine form of storytelling that cinema currently lacks.

It is therefore no surprise that the film starts out with a 17-minute opening scene, all done in one shot. The first minute or so of the film was very, very slow, and told mostly through noise as the space shuttle carefully came into view. It reminded me a bit of the slow opening fromAlien, except with Earth in the background. At first I didn't realize that there was any noise going on, as the film was as silent as the subject matter, but I eventually realized that the surround-sound was whispering in my ear a distant conversation between the astronauts and Huston. At this point I wondered if the film would get an Oscar nomination for best sound mixing or editing, since the sound of this film was a unique experience. That could be purely due how different the world of noise sounds to an astronaut in a space suit, which might not have been all that difficult to simulate, so I didn't make any strong presumptions. In any case, Cuarón was very realistic about sound.

He was, in fact, realistic about just about everything, with a few science errors thrown in purely in order to suit the plot, such as the proximity of the Hubble and the various space stations, which were very far away from each other but still closer than they would be in reality. Cuarón's reality, however, felt exactly as things would be in real life. Between the long takes and the 3D cameras, something about the realism of the visuals settled in. Since the takes were often very long in order to give the film a real-time feel, I also believe that the film only had 156 shots and that its average shot length was 46 seconds long. Cuarón made a very artful use of Earth's appearance from orbit, and the view was so extraordinary is was worth the price of admission alone. The special effects crew also thought long and hard about how things looked in the real world, and instead of going for the fantastic, they realized that reality is fantastic enough. Therefore, Gravity is a movie that should inspire the special effects coordinator, especially with its careful consideration of lighting. I was amazed a how carefullyGravity was in depicting lighting. Overall, this felt like a documentary using actual captured footage, or as if I was actually there. The 3D helped. Overall, it didn't feel like an effects film, which is exactly what special effects should strive to achieve. Very few movies ever come along with such a touch of realism in their effects, and in fact I'm not sure if I can even count them together on one hand. This is where the film could get another Oscar. In fact, a nomination is guaranteed, and a failure to win is almost unthinkable.

Regarding other Oscars, I also believe that a win for best cinematography is almost guaranteed, and Alfonso Cuarón just might get nominated for his directing. That last one isn't as likely, since even though this film is technically ambitious to shoot, I don't know how challenging the rest of the production was. However, doing my research I realize that he found some creative solutions to problems such as making the shooting sessions with Sandra Bullock as bearable as possible for the actress. Regardless, he's one of my favorite directors and I want to see his style formally recognized, especially since this is the essence of his work distilled.

The film's story is as many expected. It's a survival story of Sandra Bullock, playing mission specialist Ryan Stone, floating in space. The setting doesn't take, and the film never explores Huston. Everything is from her perspective and George Clooney doesn't get much screentime. The giant gaps in time are filled with conversations, hyperventilating, and general means of authenticating the atmosphere. I do not mind these, since there's something quite real about the emotion to them. They flow as I would have personally written a scene.

After a while, Ryan finds refuge in the International Space Station, and due to the more claustrophobic nature of this set, there are a few more cuts than before. At this point, I realized that there were some unrealistic things about Cuarón's world. When Ryan took off her space suit once inside, I thought that she was too muscular for someone who had been in space for a week. Zero-gravity has a devastating effect on astronauts, even if they work out constantly. However, I also noticed that Ryan had the most beautiful haircut I've seen this year. People who know me would know that I just fall in love with women who have short hair. Well, not love love, but still. I haven't found Sandra Bullock to be absolutely beautiful like this since she starred in While You Were Sleeping, which is another film I highly recommend.

What I did not find sexy, however, was George Clooney. I understand that being give him a lot of credit as an actor, but gradually his role went from a charming and sincere man to George Clooney playing himself. At some points, he confidently references his handsome looks. I get it - Clooney is supposed to be sexy. Perhaps the character was supposed to be sexy, but I never felt that the character was who Cuarón might have originally intended him to me.

There were also a few other minor flaws, particularly with one of Sandra Bullock's tears, which floats off her face in zero-gravity and hovers in front of her. It was a beautiful shot, and the tear itself looked completely real, but the act of it coming off her face did not look real. It was the one point in the film where I was actively aware of how the laws of physics were being played with for artistic merit. A tear wouldn't float off her face. Her hair also failed to float freely, though that might be permissible considering that her hair was fairly short and might have had a way of staying in place. In any case, these were areas in which the film could have improved its realism.

Finally, this film will not be remembered for its editing. The shots went on for so long that sometimes a balance between long takes and short takes didn't always mesh. It looked beautiful regardless, but editing should be seamless and impossible to notice. I couldn't help but notice whenever the film switched to a new cut.

Gravity also missed a major opportunity to nab an Oscar-worthy score. So much of this story could have been told through music that could have become iconic. I wish Cuarón could have negotiated an overnight score from John Williams. They've worked together before inPrisoner of Azkaban. An amazing score was not altogether necessary, and I think he managed to capture something amazing with the constant silence throughout the film, but he still ended up using a score. I think that if Gravity were to have any score at all, which it did, it should have been used in only three places throughout the movie, or the score should have been one giant, uninterrupted symphony. I personally lean toward the latter. The film flows like a short story, which is amazing, and it would be a perfect opportunity to represent the atmosphere with one uninterrupted musical experience. Either one of these two possibilities, or there should have been no music at all in order to truly perfect the vivid reality of the film. I have a fondness for 2001: A Space Odyssey, that strongly influences how I personally would have made this film, but at the end of the day I respect Cuarón's judgment. He still created an amazing masterpiece of sound and motion that I can only dream of doing myself.

This flows very much how I would like my own short stories to flow if they had been made into films, and I hope many directors take inspiration from Gravity's style. In order that I might see something like this more often, I highly recommend that anyone who reads this review goes out and watches this movie so that Hollywwod might be sent a message, and that they might trust projects like this more often.