Let's just get that out of the way right now. This is not a documentary on the history of NASA or a video lesson on orbital mechanics. I would call this a science fiction film leaning towards "hard science". Yes, some scenes are more interpretive and are more cinematic shorthand, to both move the movie along as well as reach for more metaphorical meaning, as this movie delves deeply both into metaphorical and metaphysical. There has been nitpicking from science "purists" who want everything explained and everything by the book in anything approaching "hard science", which this movie does. But...this is a story, which deals with an inner journey as well as outer, and really, great space adventures have both, even the historical ones. So...relax and enjoy the movie. If I see you whipping out your calculators and slide rules, I will slap them out of your hands.
The time is the late 90s, the place is Earth orbit during a shuttle mission to install a new component on the Hubble Space telescope. Sandra Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a medical engineer and rookie astronaut/mission specialist who designed the component being added to the HST. George Cloony is Matt Kowalski, veteran astronaut on his final flight into the black. His easy, breezy comfort with space flight, underlined by him zipping about in a Manned Maneuvering Unit and attempting to break a spacewalk record contrasts with Stone's nervousness as she fumbles about her mission. While they are up there, the Russians engage in an ill-timed, ill considered missle ground to space intercept experiment, showering their orbital path with fast moving debris. Then that greatest of physical laws takes over, that of Murphy, and what was a routine truck into space and some tinkering turns into a fight for survival, a test of wits, will and technical knowledge as Stone struggles to survive and keep ahead of a cascading series of acts perpetrated by the fickle finger of fate.
That would be exciting if this was just about a resourceful astronaut trying to survive in the harshest of environments. But Alfonso Cuaron, director of Children of Men, shows again he is not just about the science in science fiction. He is about philosophy, transcendence and the inner journey in outer worlds. As Stone bounces from one plight to another, we catch her reactions and her dialogues/monologues and see what is on her mind. She is a lonely woman who misses her only daughter who has passed away, and has been buried in her professional work. She is confronting the great mystery of space and her own mortality and the contemplation of what lies beyond. She finds those great questions of life welling up within her and in this setting, gives voice to her queries, fears and hopes.
What answers come in the end are truly open to speculation and interpretation.
Ponder it for yourself. This is a GREAT film, worthy of the attention, accolades and awards it has received.
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