The set pieces involving the debris and the long takes of the characters becoming detached and floating away are the primary reason that Gravity is a monumental achievement. Its sheer immersiveness is possibly more effective and affecting than that of any movie that has preceded it. But even this amount of action—and it’s not always exciting, fast-paced action, but often the mere thrill of witnessing the characters undertake tasks and respond to unexpected events—is impossible to sustain over a full 90-minute span of a feature film. So filler is necessary. To the filmmakers’ credit, instead of giving the audience breaks from the emotionally exhausting and visually overwhelming action segments with mundane and obvious story points and shallow character information (though some argue this is exactly what it does), I found its quieter moments to be subtle and effective, establishing motivation for why the characters respond in the way they do to their respective plights.
It’s not complicated whatsoever, but this is one of the movie’s strengths. We’re already overwhelmed with the complicated and fast-moving images and with dealing with a brand new way of depicting space, whether it’s the use of 3D or lack of sound or continuous takes. Sticking a heavily nuanced plot in there or too much of an expository character component would result in things getting lost in the shuffle. This comes back again to the Bullock performance—there’s enough in the performance that we are able to piece together the bits of information we get about her life and why she’s at the mental place she is in the story, and this makes it an engaging enough story for us to care about her survival. Not only to care, but to become deeply invested. Because as my final point suggests, it’s less about the way she survives, which the earth-dwelling audience would not relate to as immediately, and more about the will to survive, which is universally applicable.
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