FILM REVIEW: 127 Hours

Director: Danny Boyle    Release Date: Nov. 5,2010        Rating: 82%                                                            

Review by: Aaron Schrank

It’s awfully hard to sustain a gripping narrative in a film depicting one man stuck in isolation. Without the conveniences of traditional dialogue and character interaction, filmmakers depend on imaginative cinematic techniques to battle plot stagnation. Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild” relied heavily on flashbacks to construct the story of real-life vagabond Chris McCandless. 2009’s “Moon” gave its astronaut a Kubrickian robot companion. “Cast Away” kept Tom Hanks (and audiences) entertained with a personified volleyball.  Director Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours” calls for even more frills, as it chronicles the true story of hiker Aron Ralston who, for five days, is not only secluded, but immobile—his right arm wedged between a collapsed boulder and a canyon wall.

 Aware of his plot’s limitations, Boyle (“Trainspotting”, “Slumdog Millionaire”) makes every attempt to keep things interesting, employing hallucination montages, flashbacks, kinetic camerawork, a potent musical score and a number of plot devices, including the camcorder Ralston uses to document his dilemma. These elements, despite their technical excellence, tend to distract from, rather than emphasize, the raw emotional drama that Ralston’s story boasts. Ultimately, the “127 Hours” storyline is appropriately droning and unexpectedly detached, with a few moments of genuine intensity that make it worth watching.

While James Franco delivers a soulful performance as Ralston, the screenplay, written by Boyle and Simon Beaufoy, fails to provide enough insight into Ralston’s personality for audiences to understand the character on a deeper level. Instead, Ralston is shown as an everyman. Nondescript flashbacks contribute little to his character. As time passes, Ralston grows more self-reflective and the audience learns that he wishes he talked to his parents on the phone more often or that he may have taken an ex-girlfriend for granted. While the vagueness of  Ralston’s most intimate introspections allows audiences to project their own concerns or regrets onto the character, it is crippling to the on-screen story.

“127 Hours” begins with the carefree Ralston hopping in his car and driving to the Utah desert. The wide-open desert, with its beautifully bright terrain and painted skies, is immediately established as the ideal, poised to provide sharp contrast to Ralston’s canyon prison. He rides his mountain bike for miles, snaps photos and appears completely in his element. Ralston meets a pair of female hikers and, in some of the only scenes in film with any dialogue, leisurely gives them an all-access tour of the environment, showcasing his outdoors expertise. After sending the hikers in the right direction, Ralston stomps off, beginning his traverse of Blue John Canyon. Minutes later, he puts his weight on an unstable boulder. He and the boulder drop into a dark crevasse of the canyon. Then, nearly 15 minutes into the film, the title flashes on the screen: “127 Hours”. The clock begins ticking in the mind of the viewer.

As Ralston fights dehydration, hunger and fatigue, his mind wanders—shown on screen with a series of impressive camera and editing techniques. Ralston’s thoughts are depicted in a film-clip flurry of past experiences, daydreams, and pop-culture vignettes. When he’s thirsty, the camera dexterously zigzag-tracks from his crevasse back to his car, settling on a full bottle of Gatorade in the trunk. A montage of vintage soda commercials flashes on the screen. As Ralston fondly remembers his childhood, a home video-style shot of a young female pianist appears. Back in the shadowy confines of the canyon, Ralston subtly smiles: “Way to go, sis.”

In Ralston’s cramped environment, Boyle employs tight, shaky shots to convey a feeling of claustrophobia and jump cuts to document the protagonist’s deterioration. A stunning reverse zoom from the depths of the crevasse to an overheard view on the entire desert landscape puts things in perspective. Other creative shots attempt to break up some of the tedium of his surroundings, including a camera placed inside Ralston’s water bottle and camcorder shots of Ralston as he records final messages for friends and family. In one camcorder scene, Ralston stages a faux talk-show interview in which he self-deprecatingly reveals that he neglected to tell anyone where he was going prior his trip. A sitcom laugh track adds an element of irony. While Ralston is in isolation, his thoughts and sense of humor keep him company and counter the film’s ability to fully capture the essence of his misery. At one point, beginning to hallucinate, the stranded hiker cries out, “Don’t lose it, Aron!”

Adapted from Ralston’s autobiography, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place”, “127 Hours” is a straightforward illustration of the human will to live, communicated predominantly in the film’s most gruesome scene. Once all hope of a rescue is reasoned away, Ralston is faced with a decision. He must amputate his arm, or die. While the solution is clear to Ralston and the audience, the necessary act is unimaginable. Then, the stunning amputation scene shows the audience just how horrendous such a procedure would be, leaving nothing to the imagination. As viewers squirm in their seats, they realize that their reasoning minds led them to the same conclusion as the man on the screen and that they, under identical circumstances, would take the dreadful action depicted before them. While this scene is causing some filmgoers to faint in theaters, it is certainly the crowning achievement of the film, as it evokes a disturbing truth that will haunt viewers for as long as their memories allow.

As he did in 2008’s celebrated “Slumdog Millionaire”, Boyle examines life through a fatalistic lens in “127 Hours”. In the same way that every seemingly insignificant incident in the “Slumdog” protagonist’s life led to his winning 20 million rupees on an Indian game show, each and every one of Aron Ralston’s missteps has led him here, to this rock. As he deliriously reflects on his past experiences, Ralston remarks, “This rock has been waiting for me for me all my life…and all its life.”

“127 Hours” relies, often too heavily, on musical selections as emotional cues. Indian film composer A.R. Rahman (“Slumdog Millionaire”) provides an original score that is supplemented by tracks from Free Blood, Bill Withers and others. When a violent rainstorm floods the crevasse, a frantic musical arrangement signals an already apparent danger. While an appropriate ear-splitting distortion forcefully indicates that Ralston has struck his nerve during the amputation scene, the music throughout this scene unfairly dictates the audience’s interpretation. Ralston’s final march back into civilization, after severing his limb, should be grand enough on its own, but Sigur Ros’s “Festival” is gratuitously employed to ensure a blockbuster ending. Because of their epic, cinematic quality, Sigur Ros tracks are all-too-often selected in concluding film scenes. In films ranging from “Vanilla Sky” to “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”, this cheap technique has been exhausted.

With an undeniably appealing true story, a skilled actor in his largest role ever and technically-perfect director, “127 Hours” has all the makings of a masterpiece. Unfortunately, Boyle is unable to overcome the restraints of this one-man show and propel the plot is an approachable way. The result is a decent, sometimes arduous film that owes most of its worth to the provocative clout of a few key scenes.