100 Movies Every Catholic Should See #19: Gravity (2013)

Directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Written by Alfonso and Jonás Cuarón. Starring Sandra Bullock, George Clooney.

The story of a soul adrift.

*spoilers ahead*

Gravity begins with an impressive thirteen-minute long tracking shot that gives viewers a glimpse of their home planet from a distant vantage point. Immediately, audiences are immersed into outer space and feel everything from the perspective of the astronaut protagonist Dr. Stone (a gripping portrayal from Sandra Bullock). With the opening camera shot never breaking, but only drifting slightly, the sensation of weightlessness becomes real. While the feeling of floating in space can sound liberating, the truth is that an astronaut is severely limited in space travel. Not liberated at all, they are fully dependent on technology for survival. Space is vast, endless, but ironically limited for what a person can do or achieve because of human limitations. People can stare in wonder and awe at space travel and what humankind has been able to accomplish with man-made technology, but the further people drift from their earthly home, the less capable they are of surviving. The ambitious man seeks to conquer the stars, but more often than not, the stars conquer him. In the case of Gravity, the realization soon sets in that space will never be a place man can truly find peace.