Movie Review - 127 Hours

127 Hours (2010)

Starring James Franco, Amber Tamblyn, Kate Mara, and Clémance Poésy

Directed by Danny Boyle

I don't get choked up too often.  For some reason or another, as 127 Hours came to a close, my eyes welled up a bit.  No tears flowed, but the true life nature of this story got to me for some reason.  Of course, a movie making you get emotional in that manner is always a good thing and Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle's latest is a winner and one of the best films I've seen in 2010.

Based on the true story of Aron Ralston, James Franco portrays the title character, an adventure-seeking nature lover who, while hiking alone through a canyon in Utah finds himself trapped under a fallen boulder.  It's him...and a boulder...for about eighty minutes.  Reminscent of Tom Hanks' turn in Cast Away, this film rests solely on Franco's shoulders acting-wise and the young talent delivers in spades.  Despite a somewhat shaky start (which I'll discuss in a bit), once Franco gets trapped, I was completely riveted.  Franco's playing two different sides of Ralston here -- a cocky adventurer who feels nothing can harm him shifts quite well into an extremely right-minded logical guy who needs to stay strong in order to survive his horrific ordeal.  Both sides are believable and both sides are executed perfectly by Franco who should be a strong contender for Best Actor at this year's Oscars.

Of course, with a film like this, direction is extremely important considering that the film is literally just a guy stuck underneath of a rock, and Danny Boyle delivers.  While Slumdog Millionaire, while a good film, was perhaps overrated, Boyle's Oscar-winning direction was the star of that film to me.  Here, Boyle ceratinly takes a back seat to Franco.  Still, his clever direction which consists of his trademark quick cuts interspersed with moments of much-needed calm shows true talent.

That being said, the one problem that I had with the film lies a bit in the direction.  The opening scenes screamed "PRETENSION" to me.  The quick cuts and split screens that Boyle employed in the introductory moments really had me despising the film for the first five minutes.  I honestly was kind of dreading the whole experience.  However, things came around and everything fell into place quickly and became a film that I'd absolutely like to watch again.

Beyond the direction and the acting, the film works because Boyle (and his co-screenwriter Simon Beaufoy) cleverly take us into Aron's mind by giving the audience a peek at his dreams and water-deprived hallucinations.  These little asides not only give the viewer a break from the intense feeling of being trapped with Aron, but they also make us relate more to this guy.  It may seem simple, but flashing back to scenes of Aron as a youngster with his mother, father, and sister or scenes with his ex-girlfriend help to shape Aron into a full character.  Had these moments not been included, I really feel the movie would have fallen flat.

[SPOILER ALERT from here on out, although if you know anything about this movie, you're probably 100% aware of what I'm about to discuss.]  Much has been made about the infamous scene in which Aron cuts off his own arm to free himself from the boulder.  I don't quite know why it would be so faint-inducing as has been reported.  However, much like I found myself shockingly emotionally attached to the character, I imagine that may be the reason it's difficult for some people to watch.  Like me, they'd grown to relate to Aron and became oddly invested in his struggle to survive.  As I said above, this movie worked for me much more than I expected it to and I hope to see it get nominted for quite a bit in the upcoming months.

The RyMickey Rating:  A-