Breathtaking is just the first word that comes to mind when trying to describe the first footage for director Alfonso Cuaron’s sci-fi thriller Gravity. The next word that comes to mind is finally. I mean, the journey that this film has gone through in order to make it to the big screen has been an extraordinary one.
If you recall, Robert Downey Jr. and Angelina Jolie were originally locked in for the lead roles. Of course, that didn’t pan out and a number of other actresses, including Natalie Portman, Naomi Watts and Marion Cotillard flirted with the part before Cuaron landed on Sandra Bullock. Then, George Clooney was called in to replace Downey Jr. Oh ya, the film was also delayed for about a year.
Being billed as a race-against-time thriller, Gravity will find Clooney and Bullock playing two astronauts struggling to survive on a space station after their crew and ship are wiped out by satellite debris.
Poised to be a serious Oscar contender, early screenings have suggested that the film lives up to the considerable amount of hype surrounding it. And, after watching this first trailer, I can see why people are saying that. Not only is the footage stunning, with Emmanuel Lubezki‘s gorgeous cinematography really shining through, but it also looks like a very tightly woven thriller, much in the vein of Cuaron’s Children of Men, another excellent film. Though it likely won’t appeal to the masses, I can easily see myself finding a lot to appreciate here.
Check out the trailer and plot summary for Gravity below and let us know what you think in the comments.
Dr. Stone (Bullock) is a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (Clooney). 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. The deafening silence tells them they’ve lost any link to Earth… and any chance for rescue.