7/10
Remember the story about the guy who got his arm trapped under a boulder for days and had to do something awful to get himself free? Well, this is Danny Boyle's film of that story, and it's a ripper.
The credit sequence is, unusually, outstanding, concocted with energy, wit and relevance as 28 year old Aron Ralston drives out into the desert to indulge himself in some delinquent biking, climbing and generally scrambling around in the middle of nowhere. He bumps into a couple of girls, and helps them find their way, but shortly after parting from them, he falls down a gully, followed by a large boulder, which not only pins his right arm against the rock, but is wedged so hard it's impossible to shift. He is well and truly screwed. No one knows where he is, even if they were going to come looking for him, which they won't do for days. He has little water, less food, and one blunt knife. What's a guy to do?
One of the reasons that survival stories are so compelling (see also Touching The Void and Alive) is that we ask ourselves what we would do in those circumstances, even though most of us wouldn't be scrambling about in the desert in the first place. But one of the difficulties with making a film of such a familiar story is how you retain the attention of an audience many of whom know what's coming. A second difficulty for Boyle (and Simon Beaufoy, fellow scriptwriter) is how you make a film featuring a guy on his own, interesting and emotionally engaging. It was a problem that was never solved in Cast Away with Tom Hanks.
The solution here is to create a high energy and hallucinatory momentum which starts with the credit sequence and continues throughout. We're whirled along on a river of dreams, memories, fantasies, delusions and conversations with a video camera, as Ralston records what he assumes will be his last words to his parents. He also begins to see how his whole life of self-absorbed independence has brought him to this place, helpless and in need of other people. I liked it a lot, even though there are scenes that made me (and everyone else in the audience) squirm with discomfort. I think you can imagine what those are. James Franco, who has never had this substantial a leading role before, is excellent as Ralston, carrying the film with his charm and vitality. And I'm impressed by the way that Boyle has come up with such a compelling film to follow his success with Slumdog Millionaire. This may not win any Oscars, but it's going to get a lot of attention.
