Review of 127 Hours (2010) by Tomer H — 30 Jan 2015

The story of Aron Ralston's miraculous escape from his rocky prison was instantly viral around the globe. Aron has done dozens of interviews, talk-shows and speeches, talking at length about his harrowing experience. Which begs the question; why, if everyone on the planet knows this story back to front, did anyone feel the need to make it into a film. And that question remains, all the way up until the first scene of the film when it becomes obvious that this is not just a documentation of what happened in Bluejohn Canyon, this is a character study of the highest order with exhilarating style, a brilliant soundtrack, innovative script and an incredible performance to back it up. .

Danny Boyle has already cemented his place as one of the great directors of our day, with a staggering CV of films included in top 100 lists everywhere as well picking up an Oscar in 2008 for his previous film Slumdog Millionaire, but his work here may prove to be among his best yet, which is saying something about the director of Trainspotting. It's not just Franco spending three quarters of the film trapped in a canyon, Boyle is too, and the film could easily have turned into a montage of the same shots again and again. But Boyle's increasingly inventive direction injects every second of the five days with a boisterous energy which bursts at the seams. Thankfully, he always takes time to acknowledge the more sombre moments to. He also does a fantastic job with Aron's final, gruesome task, never shying away from the sight, but not becoming overly gratuitous towards the wince-worthy images. But his greatest success is the film's overall tone. In the hands of a lesser director, the film could have easily slipped into preachy, throwing lines like, never give up, make the most of the life you're given, appreciate the little things like limbs, all the things that can really piss you off to hear in a film. He realises that we the audience don't need every theme spelled out for us and even though it's not spoken as such, the message of the film is clear without the use of condescension or dumbing it down, a great example of a director creditting his audience with some level of intelligence. Despite my undying love for them, how the Coen Brothers managed to snatch Boyle's Oscar nomination away from him is beyond me. .

Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle's script, adapted from Aron Ralston's autobiography "Between a Rock and a Hard Place," is another highlight in a film full of highlights. Despite its mainly serious subject, it is hilarious at times, heartbreaking at others, insightful, inspiring, entertaining, minimalistic and always very clever. With some help from Franco's instinctive performance, the writing, as any good writing does, treads the line between reality and the feeling of a script perfectly. The use of Aron's handycam, whilst very obviously a device to flesh the film out, helps to give some great insight to our main character as well as make room for a lot more script. Seeing as Aron realises that he may die, he makes sure to say as much as he can to whoever he needs to which makes for some very emotional viewing and some fantastic comedic scenes. Aron's frequent flashbacks also could have turned into a gimmicky device to show off random happenings. Instead, they give a much needed through line to our character's largely unknown past as well as showing things he would have changed, things he wishes he could do again. The dialogue, whilst largely one way never fails to be entertaining and often insightful. .

A.R. Rahman's score is typically brilliant, bursting with life and vibrancy. His nomination this year is extremely well-deserved and I can only hope that he continues to create such truly original work in his future work. It's an eclectic mix which somehow fits together perfectly with the film. Seeing as their is a lack of back-and-forth dialogue and often a lack of dialogue in general, the music cues are especially important, and each one of them hits their mark in an unconventionally perfect fashion. The song choices are similarly fantastic, eschewing everyday pop-culture references for some inspired unknown choices, going for inventing pop-culture rather than desperately grasping for modern day pieces which age approximately 30 seconds before they're played. .

James Franco's career to date is littered with superhero films, comedies and the occasional drama but nothing to really make you sit up and take notice. But his performance is so engaging, so exciting, so perfectly imperfect, that it will leave no one in doubt as to his acting prowess. Franco carries the entire film and his failure would directly result in the film's failure. But he mines such a deeply emotional, nuanced, diverse performance from himself that he lifts the film to an entirely different level. We follow his character through incredulity, irrationality, acceptance and finally determination and Franco displays each of these qualities with such raw reality that it's difficult to imagine that this actually happened somebody other than him. He doesn't try to copy his real life counterpart, rather making the character his own and getting deep into his mindset. This makes it seem all the more real as he rants and rails at the non-responsive rock which has suddenly become himself. This could be the role that people look back at and say, "That was Franco at his best," but I for one hope that more roles come about which make the most of his ever-growing potential. .

It's a testament to the incredible filmmaking skill of everyone involved that such a harrowing tale can become so uplifting, inspiring and brilliantly human. This is one of the year's best films and Franco's best performance in his career to date. .

Defining Scene: .

Aron hosts a morning talk show with himself.