Taglines: Don’t let go.
Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone – tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness.
Gravity is a science fiction thriller film[3][4] directed, co-written, co-produced and co-edited by Alfonso Cuarón. It stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts, and sees them stranded in space after the mid-orbit destruction of their space shuttle and their subsequent attempt to return to Earth.
Cuarón wrote the screenplay with his son Jonás and attempted to develop the film at Universal Pictures. The rights were sold to Warner Bros. Pictures, where the project eventually found traction. David Heyman, who previously worked with Cuarón on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, produced the film with him. Gravity was produced entirely in the UK, where the British visual effects company Framestore spent more than three years creating most of the film’s visual effects, which comprise over 80 of its 91 minutes.
Gravity opened the 70th Venice International Film Festival in August 2013 and had its North American premiere three days later at the Telluride Film Festival. It was released to cinemas in the United States and Canada on October 4, 2013. The film was met with universal acclaim from critics and audiences; both groups praised Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography, Steven Price’s musical score, Cuarón’s direction, Bullock’s performance and Framestore’s visual effects. It has grossed more than US$716 million worldwide, making it the eighth highest-grossing film of 2013.
At the 86th Academy Awards, Gravity received a leading ten nominations (tying American Hustle), and won seven, the most for the ceremony, including: Best Director for Cuarón, Best Cinematography for Lubezki, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Score for Price. The film was also awarded six BAFTA Awards, including Outstanding British Film and Best Director, the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, and seven Critics Choice Awards.
About the Story (2013)
Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a biomedical engineer aboard the NASA space shuttle Explorer for her first space mission, the STS-157 program. Veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) is commanding his final expedition. During a spacewalk to service the Hubble Space Telescope and Stone’s upgrades to the Telescope, Mission Control in Houston warns the team about a Russian missile strike on a defunct satellite, which has inadvertently caused a chain reaction forming a cloud of debris in space. Mission Control orders that the mission be aborted and the shuttle begin re-entry immediately to leave because the debris is speeding towards the telescope. Communication with Mission Control is lost shortly after.
High-speed debris from the Russian satellite strikes the Explorer and Hubble, detaching Stone from the shuttle and leaving her tumbling through space. Kowalski, using a manned maneuvering unit (MMU), soon recovers Stone and they make their way back to the Explorer. They discover that it has suffered catastrophic damage and the rest of the crew is dead. They use the MMU to make their way to the International Space Station (ISS), which is in orbit only about 1,450 km (900 mi) away. Kowalski estimates they have 90 minutes before the debris field completes an orbit and threatens them again.
En route to the ISS, the two discuss Stone’s home life and the death of her young daughter. As they approach the substantially damaged but still operational ISS, they see its crew has evacuated in one of its two Soyuz modules. The parachute of the remaining Soyuz has deployed, rendering the capsule useless for returning to Earth. Kowalski suggests using it to travel to the nearby Chinese space station Tiangong, 100 km (60 mi) away, in order to board a Chinese module to return safely to Earth.
Out of air and maneuvering power, the two try to grab onto the ISS as they fly by. Stone’s leg gets entangled in Soyuz’s parachute cords and she grabs a strap on Kowalski’s suit. Despite Stone’s protests, Kowalski detaches himself from the tether to save her from drifting away with him, and she is pulled back towards the ISS while Kowalski floats away to a certain death. He continues to support her until he is out of communications reach.
Stone enters the ISS via an airlock. She cannot re-establish communication with Kowalski and concludes that she is the sole survivor. A fire breaks out, forcing her to rush to the Soyuz. As she maneuvers the capsule away from the ISS, the tangled parachute tethers prevent it from separating from the station. She spacewalks to release the cables, succeeding just as the debris field completes its orbit and destroys the station. Stone aligns the Soyuz with Tiangong but discovers that its engine has no fuel.
After a poignant radio communication with a foreign-speaking fisherman on Earth, Stone resigns herself to being stranded and shuts down the cabin’s oxygen supply to commit suicide. As she begins to lose consciousness, Kowalski enters the capsule. Scolding her for giving up, he tells her to rig the Soyuz’s landing rockets to propel the capsule toward Tiangong. Stone then realizes that Kowalski’s reappearance was not real, but has nonetheless given her the strength of will to carry on. She restores the flow of oxygen and uses the landing rockets to navigate toward Tiangong, which is rapidly deorbiting.
Gravity (2013)
Directed by:
Starring: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris, Eric Michels, Basher Savage, Amy Warren
Screenplay by: Alfonso Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón
Production Design by: Andy Nicholson
Cinematography by: Emmanuel Lubezki
Film Editing by: Alfonso Cuarón, Mark Sanger
Costume Design by: Jany Temime
Set Decoration by: Rosie Goodwin, Joanne Woollard
Music by: Steven Price
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense perilous sequences, some disturbing images and brief strong language.
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