NOTE: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
As I enter the stadium seating in an unknown, out-of-town movie theater, after spending $8.50 on a film ticket, I had no idea what to expect. Throughout the film, uncertainty crawled through my skin, under which I felt chills down my spine. From the all-important climax, after which an excellent character development envelops, I cringed at what I saw.
Boyle’s 127 Hours is based on the outstanding survival story of Aron Ralston who spent, as the title suggests, 127 hours trapped in a canyon with his arm under a boulder, losing energy and oxygen second by second, minute by minute, day by day.
What intrigued me about this film was the uplifting message and ending. Almost all of the time, if not all of the time, a true, melodramatic story arrives in theaters that, while empowering and inspiring, can often become cliched and overzealous, priding itself in the material it presents. What 127 Hours has going it for it is the creativity and originality within its adapted screenplay that allows that empowering feeling of self-worth while priding itself on one achieving his goals as opposed to the audience feeling sorry for the one who is in pursuit of survival.
From the moment I saw him on screen at the very beginning, I knew James Franco would be perfect for this role. Having seen in numerous other films, including one of his better performances in Milk, I felt a sense of uneasiness in me while watching his character pack and get ready to ride his bike through the canyons. Throughout, his character develops into a fun-loving, somewhat creepy guy who befriends two women and shows his loveable, ladies’ man side; after that, Franco’s acting takes a huge, serious turn. He is trapped inside the boulder, and the only way out is up, literally.
From the moment the title card appeared on screen, and just about twenty or thirty minutes in, I had no idea Franco could carry almost an hour of film by himself, but he surpassed my expectations and did a phenomenal job. His gritty, emotionally raw portrayal of Aron Ralston seemed effortless and surreal. In the one instance when he tries to pull apart one of his nerves, I felt the pain. I cringed. I closed my eyes. I prayed for him. In that moment, I forgot I was watching my movie and became encompassed in the story and actually feeling for this character, through his grief and pain. I wanted him to make it, and I wanted him to stop suffering.
While Franco’s acting was absolutely superb and is one of my favorite performances of the year, Danny Boyle, coming off of Slumdog Millionaire fever, really impressed me with his direction. The close-knit, claustrophobic shots of being trapped in the canyon with Franco gave an eerie, otherwise awkward feeling of not knowing where to go. The opening sequences in which Franco is staring at the camera and the camera is up close on him seems to be a parallel with him being trapped in the canyon.
In the last sequence, the claustrophobic feeling and cringing throughout my body went away, and I was free from my worries as Ralston (portrayed by Franco) was free from the boulder, free to live his life in a whole new light, 127 hours later.
