Have you ever seen a movie, thought, “Hmm. Good movie,” and moved on with your life, then watched it again and found that it had a much deeper impact the second time around?
The first time I saw “Gravity,” to be fair, it was with my mother-in-law, which is to say it was accented with such comments, like, “Why does she keep breathing so heavy?” and “Is it just going to be her?” And then when it was over: “It wasn’t that good.” Despite that, I was able to appreciate that it was a good enough movie.
Several months later, I somehow ended up watching it again and this time, I was crying at the end. And lately, I can’t stop watching the end sequence and wondering why this movie is affecting me this way at this point, because I’m thinking I’m the only one watching it over and over again and bawling every single time.
SPOILERS COMING. Honestly, the movie is two years old at this point at least. Sandra Bullock plays a newbie astronaut assigned to fix an issue in a U.S. space station with a veteran crew. There are about four of them, but really, all the ladies really just came for George Clooney. A stream of random space debris damages their ship and kills all of the crew except Bullock and Clooney, who end up adrift in space, tethered to one another. They find their bearings and boom! Another stream of debris and they end up separated but still joined — Bullock, whose character’s name is Ryan Stone, and who, we discover, has lost a child — has a grip on the ship and Clooney decides to let go of the rope and relieve the pressure on her, against her objections, of course, because now she is on her own in space. Clooney stays around long enough to talk her onto the docking station so she can replenish her suit supplies (she was also low on oxygen). Ryan decides she is going to save Clooney, dammit (good call) and just as she gets her bearings, boom! Fire on the ship. Well, dammit. And space debris! Now she has to separate from the part that’s on fire and armed with half-a-vessel, she plans to visit the Russian station because vodka. There’s apparently vodka. She space hops to another vessel, and she starts the ship and the thing is dead. She is stuck in space and freezing to death. She becomes resigned to her fate and then Clooney just opens the ship door and tells her that she doesn’t have to die — this is a totally fixable situation. But it’s going to be hard. Then he’s gone again and now Ryan remembers how to get the ship on and on a path towards Earth and this part is where I cry all over my bed sheets every time. Even as she plummets to Earth miraculously in one piece, she still almost drowns because of the weight of her astronaut suit and has to hustle like hell to get out of it and back to the surface so she can get some air. She’s made it and I’m not going to cry writing about this.
OK, I’m back. Some movies, as I say, sneak up on you and maybe when you see them for a second time, something is different about you. Neil DeGrasse Tyson sees this movie and says, well, this premise is ridiculous and that is probably true. I see this movie (twice) and obviously it’s a metaphor for life. You think you’re weak and then something happens that shakes you, that changes you completely and when it’s over, you still think you’re weak. Then something else happens — life happens — and you get through it and you still think you’re weak because you’re damaged. But really it’s your experiences that have made you strong without you knowing. The next time something happens, you approach it with a new set of skills and knowledge and now you’re still damaged but you know more about you and the world and life than you did before. You finally come to understand that you can do this. And even at the end, she’s on terra firma, and she’s still in an undiscovered country, and there’s still more out there before she finds her way home.
Sometimes, you’re not ready to see something that’s there. The first time I saw “Gravity,” I was comfortable with my family in our comfortable home with the heat on in January and in a professional routine that seemed just fine at the time. And my mother-in-law was visiting, so. The next time I saw the movie, I was in a new land in a new job and everything seemed like space-hopping to the next spot. So maybe it’s that.
There’s another thing. If you’re an artist of any type, even if you’re not that great — if you create — this movie is what art is supposed to be. It’s as the Mona Lisa. Sometimes, she’s school-marmy, sometimes seductive. It’s in the eye of the beholder and if you’re the artist, you get to set it just so, so it’s not just one story. Director Alfonso Cuaron does a masterful job of telling two stories at once. The one you see/hear depends on the beholder. That’s art. That’s the gravity of what you’re making.
Please, though. Don’t get me started on “Interstellar.”