127 Hours
With the exception of All Is Lost and Buried, 127 Hours is perhaps the closest film to a solo character movie since 2009’s Moon. Yes, the character in question – Aron Ralston (James Franco) – has flashbacks about his family, but they are not physically there with him in his isolated circumstance. Yes, Ralston meets, and briefly hangs out with two young women at the beginning of the movie, but this is the swiftest of interludes. The vast majority of 127 Hours sees Ralston – a real-life ‘canyoneer’ – entirely alone. This extended isolation is something that becomes the crux of the issue when he slips down a canyon and finds his arm trapped by a boulder. What follows is a very real scenario which begs the question – what would you do to survive?
Based on Ralston’s book about his life-changing experience – ‘Between A Rock And A Hard Place’ – 127 Hours sees James Franco play out the events of his 5 day ordeal under the masterful direction of Danny Boyle. At first, Aron tries to damage the rock using his pen-knife. Realizing the knife is having no effect on the boulder at all, he turns it on his arm, but discovers it is now too blunt to cut. As desperation sets in, he begins to have flashbacks about his family, and resigns himself to a slow death.
After five days – during which his water supply has dwindled to nothing – he has what he believes to be a premonition about his unborn son. He begins to realize, through his confusion, that he can apply force to his arm to snap his bones, after which he cuts the arm off with a smaller, sharper knife. Finally free, but still in a remote and isolated location, Ralston must then get himself to a place where he can be rescued.
Steeped in intensity, 127 Hours presents a battle for survival in which one gravely injured man must battle his own mind, as well as his environment, in order to survive. What is truly fascinating about the movie is that, being based on Ralston’s book, we know that in the film, he will survive. Difficult though his situation becomes, we already know the character is currently alive and well and hiking through more canyons. The achievement here is that – despite there being no real element of surprise or discovery – we are still gripped at the throat by each and every frame. That is certainly a testament to both the director and the star, but also to Simon Beaufoy – who essentially managed to write a full, detailed and dramatic screenplay about a man stuck in a hole, alone.
