“127 Hours” may be the most critically acclaimed film to have a history of people requiring medical attention during a handful of screenings. Based on the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston, nearly 90% of the film’s runtime is set in the one location—under a large rock—with only James Franco keeping the audience company. Amazingly, the film never seems to drag though writer/director Danny Boyle is pushed to absurd, hyper-active techniques to accomplish this. James Franco sours while many of Boyle’s tricks land with a thud. Note: I may become a bit bolder with my rock puns, but, hey, geology rocks.
"What did I do to deserve this," asks the blog reader.
Boyle, coming off of his high-energy, Oscar-winner, “Slumdog Millionaire,” similarly lifts “127 Hours” with lens flares, loud music, diagonal camera work, stock-footage and jump cuts. He also reaches further into his personal bag of tricks with sporadic voice-overs, product-placement hallucinations and scathing commentary on consumer culture. “127 Hours” works as a contrasting dichotomy between this style and the claustrophobic subject. Indeed, this rock ‘n roll style keeps away boredom more gracefully than many action film directors have yet discovered. Of Boyle’s previous films, “127 Hours” is probably most similar to “The Beach”—though both suffered from a lack of confidence. Whereas “The Beach” had the awkward and pointless inclusion of marijuana-growing gunmen, “127 Hours” fails to trust James Franco as a compelling enough actor to keep an audience interested without inserting flashbacks.
Throughout the film, Ralson (Franco) recalls moments in his life that weren’t really inspired by anything in the canyon, don’t really justify his solitary character nor even lead to any revelations more specific than, “I should have been a better person.” However, one flashback was actually a premonition of a party Ralston was invited to, occurring at roughly the same time as he thought about it, trapped. As he had planned on hiking and climbing for several more days, it is unlikely he would have actually gone to this party—however, by considering the course of his life had he been able to, and chosen to go to, the party, the movie nearly reaches an early epiphany. That is, we are given one life and we can never live it all. We can never be in two places at once, even if we want to. It is unlikely, Ralston wanted to be trapped under a boulder, but it is also unlikely he entirely wanted to be at some random party. Yes, he wanted a beer and friends, but at what cost? Why the cost of dependence and responsibilities, of course. I believe such an understanding of Franco’s character could have been reached and expanded had there been no flashbacks but (if there had to be cut-to scenes) have only flash-forwards—an alternate timeline to Ralston character, bounding over unmoved boulders and eventually strolling back home.
The script has several instances of heart-breaking revelations, not so much in Franco’s pain, but in the deadpan delivery of bad news. Every ten minutes or so after the rock fall, Ralston, via his digital video camera, reveals a piece of (more) bad news to the audience. Yes, many of us know going into the movie where the action must go, but we need to be coaxed there; it must be so definitive that we are at the last possible resort so as to see Ralston not as a madman but as a testament to human survival. A character so decidedly anti-social is a hard character to make likable, as we as an audience must be willing members of society to see said movie. However Franco pulls it off; a loner who isn’t condescending to the masses he regularly runs from.
With only some hesitation, I’d like to move on to the climatic ‘cutaway’ scene—wherein Ralston looses a few pounds by cutting off his right [spoiler] forearm. The scene brutally fires on all cylinders (editing, sound, acting, etc) so extravagantly that one loses the reality of the scene in favor for the emotion of the scene. To just see a man cut off his arm would not engage the audience as obnoxiously as to convey real unimaginable pain—displayed with electronic screeching and seizure-inducing flashes. The scene itself was rather unpleasant, though inspiring any kind of sickening reaction from me is a first and an admirable, though not commendable, feat. Thankfully, minutes later Ralston finds dirty water to plunge his face into, experiencing a refreshing feeling that I shared. Plot-wise, I’ll stop there as to not ruin the ending of the film.
In the film’s entirety, I was pleasantly surprised but not particularly amazed. The ‘true story’ element kept “127 Hours” from having the canyon-sized plot holes of Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The Beach” or “Sunshine” but each of those films seemed to offer less moralizing than this latest feature. As a last criticism, the film pads out the 94-minute running time, replaying about 10 minutes of footage—perhaps in a last-ditch attempt to keep this movie out of the short film category at the Oscars. Boyle, receiving largely high marks, will likely only continue his diagonal framing and other assorted gimmicks, but at least the audience learned a lesson--unfortunately not voiced of Steve “J. Walter Weatherman” Ryan:
“And that’s why you always leave a note.”
I would have watched this if it starred DDD
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