Review: 127 Hours

Set in 2003, James Franco is Aron Ralston, an experienced climber and hiker out on his own in Utah, having not even told his parents (Treat Williams and Kate Burton) of his whereabouts. After guiding (and flirting with) a couple of lost chicks (Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn), Ralston overestimates his own abilities and within a fraction of a second it all goes to hell. His little climbing expedition ends when a momentary lapse of footing sees him take a tumble down a shaft and his arm gets crushed between a falling boulder and a rock wall. He’s stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no one around to help, and barely enough food or water to last more than a few days. With the possibility of death becoming increasingly certain, and his mind starting to frazzle (he even hallucinates an appearance by Scooby-Doo!), he starts to think about his parents, his girlfriend, and what he sees as the only possible way of getting out alive. A very gruesome, desperate, but necessary measure.

It’s hard not to compare this Danny Boyle (“28 Days Later”, “Slumdog Millionaire”) film from 2010 to Sean Penn’s 2007 film “Into the Wild”. Both are real-life stories of idiots who do something stupid that sees bad things happen to them in the middle of nowhere that wouldn’t have happened had they not done the stupid thing in the first place. However, in addition to being a much better made film, this one succeeds where “Into the Wild” miserably failed by virtue of the main character being an experienced climber and outdoorsman whose calamity is more a stroke of bad luck and moment of overconfidence. Compare this to the lead character in “Into the Wild” who stupidly throws away all form of ID, selfishly cuts himself off from family and friends in a self-absorbed quest to ‘find himself’ and he ends up in deep shit with no one to help. James Franco’s character in “127 Hours” stupidly fails to alert people as to his whereabouts, and yes his activities are dangerous and to me quite moronic, but he doesn’t have the same level of unlikeable selfishness that the Emile Hirsch character had in “Into the Wild”. He’s a bit of a spacey douche, but likeable, and at least he ends up realising his mistakes (I’m not even sure the Emile Hirsch character thought he had done anything wrong, he was so wrapped up in his own selfish needs to find himself- Did he never look in the mirror?), and given that he’s an experienced and accomplished mountaineer/hiker, one can sympathise with his character far more, because nine times out of ten, he was gonna be perfectly OK and he knew the risks (I doubt the Hirsch character had even thought of the risks). He just plain got unlucky, or at worst, momentarily overconfident. Thus I ended up entirely engrossed, horrified, and moved by this experience, even if at the end of the day, these outdoorsy types just seem like such dicks to me. I’ll never understand it.

I’ve always felt, ever since I saw his incredible impersonation of James Dean, that James Franco deserved to be a freakin’ star. Despite his Oscar nomination here and a supporting role in the first three “Spiderman” movies, it has never quite happened. I have no idea what the fuck he’s doing taking gigs on “General Hospital”, but the fact is, the dude can act, and he does an amazing job here. In fact, he probably deserved to win the Oscar for Best Actor. Yes, Colin Firth and Jeff Bridges were both very good, but Franco really does leave it all out there, gives it everything he has. Above all else, he makes this slightly douchy, possibly thoughtless guy entirely likeable and sympathetic. You really, really end up caring about this guy, and it’s not just because of the situation he finds himself in. Franco really does deserve a lot of the credit, he gives a wonderfully affecting, but also very realistic performance. I’m particularly glad that Franco doesn’t show Aron having any real religious experience or contemplation. Sure, he says that there was a reason this happened to him, but I don’t think it was anything other than an airy-fairy notion of ‘karma’ giving him a wakeup call, not God. Sorry, believers, but not everyone is going to search for/find God when the chips are down. Many, but not everyone, so I found that refreshing.

The other star of this film is director Boyle himself. I’m not normally a fan of his, nor do I usually like visual trickfuckery and MTV-style goings on. However, Boyle doesn’t go overboard with it all, and simply does what he needs to do to liven up a very static story. Along with his two cinematographers Enrique Chediak and Anthony Dod Mantle (the latter having worked with Boyle on “Slumdog Millionaire”), he’s made a gorgeous and visually dynamic film out of a story about a guy stuck in one place for 95% of the film, not to mention how ugly and gruesome one scene happens to be (Even if, like me, you turn away from the screen. You still hear it and imagine the worst. You’ve been warned, but then...look at the plot!).

I damn near cried at the end of this film, and I was certainly moved by it. Perhaps a documentary on the same subject would’ve been even better (I guess I need to see “Touching the Void” one of these days), but this does the trick. It’s a harrowing film, a journey some might choose not to take, but thanks to Franco and Boyle, I went along for this journey a lot easier than with “Into the Wild”. One of the year’s best.

Rating: B