127 Hours

There is but one word to describe this movie: WOW! It literally took my breath away! This movie ranks high on the amazing scale for so many different reasons. But I have a duty to give a loud and clear WARNING: This movie is NOT for the faint of heart!!! This movie will make you queasy, nauseated, writhing in pain in your seat. I know, because that is exactly what happened to me. As the daughter of a doctor, blood and guts in movies don't bother me, at all. This had me aching to look away at parts; something I've never done once in all of my film watching experiences. If you think that you can stand the sights, just be prepared. And if you think that you can't.... maybe you should watch something else. It's that intense.

image via rowthree.com

But that doesn't take away from the fact that this film was absolutely outstanding. Once again, Danny Boyle has proven himself to be a master of the silver screen. He knows how to pull his audience in and put them into the world of his film. And that's exactly what he does in 127 Hours. His camera techniques, the use of symbolism, and the way he captures the beautiful Utah landscape is superb. 

The setting is both irresistibly enchanting and undeniably malicious. Boyle makes the audience simultaneously fall in love with the setting and hate it for its cruelty to the protagonist, and therefore us.

That is the other reason why this film rocks (no pun intended). The protagonist, Aron Ralston, is an interesting character. Because we know going that this is a bio-pic, all of Ralston's human personality flaws are unabashedly displayed. We know that he's real, and not some fiction character that someone created. We cannot help but like him.

That is the other amazing thing about this movie. Unlike Titanic, perhaps one of the most famous and popular bio-pics, the emphasis is not put on the disaster. Despite the fact that we all knew right from the get-go what happened to Titanic, the movie made us shocked and horrified that an ice berg could sink that ship. Here, in 127 Hours, it's not the disaster of Ralston having a boulder pin him in a tiny canyon, or even the fact that he has to cut off his own arm, where all of the emphasis is placed. It is the physical, mental, and even spiritual transformation of Ralston that we are watching. And Boyle displays it beautifully. 

And finally, the coup de grace of this film, in my personal opinion, is the acting of James Franco. I tend to put a lot of stock into how good I think a film is by the acting. Franco deserves every word of the Oscar buzz he's created from this performance. He clearly and vividly allows the audience to see Ralston's metamorphosis. And not just the physical, either. 

So there you have it. This movie was great. Really great. I would recommend it to anyone, so long as they were fairly warned about it's graphic nature.