FILM REVIEW: GRAVITY

Roadshow/Warner Bros. Films

Now Showing

Alfonso Cuaron's return to filmmaking after a seven-year absence (2006's Children of Men was his last, a film I shamefully admit to not having seen) is proof-positive that the Mexican director wasn't kicking back: Gravity, a disaster thriller set in space, is a feat of technical wonders so precise and exquisite you just know it required maximum thought and planning; achieving the desired result of having you simultaneously asking 'how'd they do that?' as you gasp in awe (and possibly for air).

Opening with an-almost 13-minute take -- a ballet of rotating camera and floating actors, with the Earth as a stunning backdrop -- Cuaron introduces us to the three member team of the Explorer: veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), 2-I-C Shariff (Paul Sharma), and Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), medical engineer and space flight first-timer.

Stone is understandably nervous, a condition both helped and hindered by Kowalski's jocular repartee with mission control in Houston (the voice of Ed Harris, a clever if obvious touch). But her fears are soon realised and superseded when Houston announces Russia has just destroyed one of their obsolete satellites and the subsequent debris is headed their way.

What ensues is a series of action set pieces as Stone and Kowalski (and soon - SPOILER - just Stone) battle both debris and rapidly depleting oxygen reserves in a bid for survival. What becomes a relentless fight for life by Stone is an equally relentless ordeal for the audience as Cuaron throws everything at his heroine and the screen (one of the rare times that 3D has been perfectly deployed in a film).

My major quibble ahead of seeing Gravity was the casting of Bullock. A fine comedic actress, her dramatic roles are few and far between and not entirely convincing (you will not persuade me that she deserved to be nominated for an Oscar for The Blind Side, let alone win the Best Actress award in 2009). But she is perfectly fine here, as a woman out of her depth and fighting for survival whilst also haunted by a family tragedy. Bullock does what the screenplay asks of her, but this is not a performance film (nor is the screenplay, co-penned with Cuaron's son, Jonas, the film's strong point).

Gravity is, however, a technical marvel. Cuaron perfectly combining all the filmmaking elements -- cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki), editing (Mark Sanger, along with Cuaron), sound editing, production design (Andy Nicholson), and visual effects -- to produce an almost perfect whole. Even if he doesn't manage to provide quite the emotional connection, or the maximum level of suspense (this reviewer was never on the edge of his seat), the beauty of the imagery Cuaron provides in Gravity is enough to warrant seeing it in a cinema and, yes, in 3D.

FILM REVIEW: RUSH

Hopscotch Films

Now Showing

Tennis is my sport of choice and it is littered with great rivalries: McEnroe and Borg; Navratilova and Evert; Sampras and Agassi; Federer and Nadal. In most of those instances, the rivalry rarely extended off the court. Whilst happy to beat down on the other during a contest, they were just as likely to be the best of friends afterwards.

Not so James Hunt and Niki Lauda. In Formula 1 racing in the 1970s, there was no greater rivalry than that of Hunt and Lauda: the popular pretty boy Englishman and the super-serious Austrian coming up together through the ranks of the sport, and cultivating a genuine dislike for each other; fuelling their on-track performances and exciting the media and race-going public.

That rivalry came to a head in 1976 when tragedy would befall the defending F1 world champion, Lauda, and Hunt would have to prove that he was more than just a contender. It's this season that is the primary focus of Ron Howard's Rush, a terrifically enjoyable look at the world of F1 even for those who haven't the slightest regard for the sport (or, like me, don't really think it is a sport. Driving cars round and round real fast? Whatever!).

Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) was a man of charm and good looks; a ladies man with a penchant for fun. He also happened to be a very talented driver, albeit one with more ambition than drive. Lauda, on the other hand, was never the life of the party. Taking up the sport despite his wealthy family's protests, he bought his way onto the Ferrari team and immediately set about telling his new employers all that was wrong with their cars.

He was too honest to be popular and too focussed on winning to be interested in chasing women (though he does marry Marlene (Alexandra Maria Lara), following a proposal as romantic as an oil change). Lauda was dubbed 'The Rat' because of his prominent front teeth but even being compared to a rodent couldn't faze the Austrian; rats, after all, are intelligent and it requires more brain than brawn to win a car race.

Peter Morgan's screenplay divides its time equally between these two men of contrast, managing to make us care for both when the action turns to the track. And Howard literally puts you in the driver's seat: hurtling around race tracks in Monte Carlo and Tokyo, in dry heat and misty rains; where danger or possibly death awaits you at every sharp turn.

I'm not sure how much of these racing scenes involved CGI but they are convincing and thrilling, rev head or not (props to cinematographer, Anthony Dod Mantle, and editors, Daniel P. Hanley and Mike Hill). And whether or not you question their athleticism, you can't deny these men their courage (or foolhardiness).

As in the 2010 documentary Senna, about the brilliant but brief Formula 1 career of Argentinian driver, Ayrton Senna, who was killed mid-race doing what he loved, Rush never shies away from the reality that death is a F1 driver's constant companion (Hunt believing his proximity to death is part of his appeal to women).

And like that doco, Howard manages to make his film as accessible and thrilling to novice and fan alike. He's helped immensely by his two leads, perfectly cast as evidenced by actual footage of the two racers during the film's closing credits. Hemsworth proving he's more than just beefcake, and Bruhl making what should be a very unlikeable character truly admirable (and pipping his more famous co-star for the chequered flag in the process).

Perhaps there's something about the 1970s which brings out the best in Ron Howard? Apollo 13 (set in 1970) and Frost/Nixon (set in 1977) are arguably the director's best films, and Rush certainly deserves a place on the grid and in the director's Top 5.

FILM REVIEW: STORIES WE TELL

Palace Films

Now Showing

Family. Everyone's got one and every one of them has skeletons. Just how deeply they're buried, and just how shocking they are when unearthed may vary on the personal reaction Richter scale from 'meh' to 'OH. MY. GOD'.

A paternity scandal may not rank all that highly from an outsider's perspective (certainly not one given to watching daytime television soap operas) but there's no denying that the secret at the heart of the Polley family -- earth shattering on one level -- makes for a fascinating tale and a documentary without a hint of soap.

Sarah Polley, a Canadian actress whom you're more likely to recognise by face than by name -- The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Go (1999), Dawn of the Dead (2004) -- has recently turned her attentions behind the camera as a director (2007's Away From Her which earned two Oscar nominations (Best Actress; Adapted Screenplay), and 2012's Take This Waltz), and, on her third outing, seems to have found the perfect subject.

Taking the adage 'write what you know' to heart, Polley has turned her directorial gaze on herself and her family: a seemingly typical middle class Canadian tribe. The mother, Diane, and father, Michael, hailing from a theatrical background and the siblings -- the eldest two from the mother's first marriage, the younger three from her second -- following less artistic pursuits (bar Sarah).

It's during a brief return to the stage in the late 1970s, out of town and away from her husband and then four children, that Diane is believed to not have only had an affair but conceived a child (Sarah). None of this is revealed to the family, including Michael, until later in life, when Diane has died from cancer and Sarah is an adult and working in Hollywood.

Through interviews with Michael, her siblings, and friends of her mother, and an almost seamless blend of recreations and actual home footage, Polley sifts through the haze of memory, real and fictional, to get to some kind of truth. For Stories We Tell is as much about memory and myth-making as it is secrets and lies, and Polley's softly-softly approach is never less than fascinating, always engaging and surprisingly affecting.

And although turning the camera on herself, Stories We Tell is by no means a Sarah Polley vanity piece; it's not about her 'celebrity', it's not even really about her reaction to the discoveries she makes even though that would have been completely understandable. It's about the family, and the Polley family could be anyone's, making Stories We Tell universal but no less intimate.

FILM REVIEW: MOOD INDIGO

Vendetta Films

Now Showing

French filmmaker Michel Gondry's latest film, Mood Indigo, screened earlier this year at the Sydney Film Festival in an incarnation clocking in at 130 minutes. Somewhere between those June screenings and its Australian release this week, it was decided the film's running time should be reduced*.

And while I don't know what plotting and characters my have been cut from the film along with those 36 minutes, my first thought upon leaving the cinema (actually, during the film) was "thank god it's only 94 minutes!"

Based on a 1947 cult novel (L'Écume des Jours, then given the English title, Froth On A Daydream) by Boris Vian (and adapted here by Gondry), Mood Indigo is essentially the tale of ill-fated love between Colin (Romain Duris), an independently wealthy man, and Chloe (Audrey Tautou).

The two enjoy a whirlwind courtship before marrying, and it's whilst on their countryside honeymoon that Chloe is infected: a water lily takes root in her lung (although I thought it was a snowflake and that Chloe would turn cold toward her doting husband as a result). There is no cure -- Chloe will die -- but her death can be delayed by the medicinal use of other flowers.

Chloe's mounting medical (and florist) bills force the now melancholic Colin to do something he's never done before: seek employment, which he does in a factory where, if my understanding is correct, laser guns are forged from mounds of dirt through the heat generated by naked men laid atop them (?).

You can understand how Michel Gondry must have been drawn to the quirk and whimsy of the original story, and the opportunity it affords him to deploy his playful visual style. Colin lives in what looks like a disused cable car and his home boasts several inventions (a pianocktail; arachnid doorbells), as well as a pet mouse and a laconic ladies man and lawyer-turned-chef, Nicolas (The Intouchables' Omar Sy).

But there seems to be too much quirk, whimsy and style in Mood Indigo and not nearly enough heart. Doomed love is only affecting if we're invested in the lovers, but as pretty a couple as Duris and Tautou make, I couldn't care less about the fates of Colin and Chloe.

If I wanted to be literal -- and unkind -- I could suggest that the take away from Mood Indigo is that love will bleed you dry, emotionally and financially. I'm sure that's not the point of Gondry's film, nor of the two previous film adaptations (one French, one Japanese) -- or the opera -- all inspired by Vian's novel.

But for a more rewarding Gondry film about love's labours won and lost, I'd recommend revisiting Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004); a bitter sweet love story whose protagonists we care deeply about.

*This shorter version of the film will be releasing in all international territories outside of France, where the film has already opened.