I finally got around to watching Gravity last week, the last one on my list before the Oscars. I knew I was in for a stressful two hours, but I also warily anticipated an evolution-enthusiastic theme after reading this review with snippets from the director.
*Spoilers ahead*
As the credits rolled, however, I wondered if Alfonso Cuaron had been talking about the same movie I'd just seen. It was possibly the most religious film I've experienced since Tree of Life. Sandra Bullock's Dr. Ryan Stone is quite literally the atheist in the foxhole. After a debris storm destroys her ship and kills off her comrades, she is left to either die alone in space, or to attempt reentry with equipment she is unfamiliar with. As she resigns herself to her bleak fate after yet another thing goes wrong, she confesses to a stranger that she has never prayed; no one ever taught her how to.
I suppose people will process a movie through the filter with which they view the world. I for one did not see Dr. Stone's triumph over adversity as symbolic of the creatures who emerged from the "primordial soup" to become beings that walked on two limbs. I witnessed a woman who was able to stand because she believed she had G-d behind her. And once she was relieved from fighting for her life, when she realized that she was grasping earth in her hand, she uttered aloud the prayer that should come most easily to any of our lips: Thank you.
Now, bring on Noah!
xo cbg
