Simply put, 127 Hours is easily one of Danny Boyle’s finest films to date. Rather than take a cushy job to celebrate his success, Boyle gave himself a major challenge as a filmmaker: how do you make a film about a man stuck in one location interesting for 90 minutes? Boyle is known for his hyper-kinetic pop-art directorial style that combines the pacing and excess of music videos with the intellectual design of an art film. His movies are amongst the most stylish in the theaters, but always with a purpose. Here Boyle using every trick he’s assembled over the years to put the audience inside the head of Aron Ralston and make them experience his terrible ordeal along with him. The screen is filled with a barrage of split screens, fast edits, and screwed camera angles, but all for a reason. When Boyle shows the point of view of water being sucked up a straw it’s not simply done as a show off shot, but to establish Ralston’s quickly depleting water supply as a character in the movie.
Unlike the recent Buried which refused to cut away from its protagonist trapped in a coffin for a second, Boyle indulges in flashbacks and hallucinations throughout the film. However, this is done simply to show Ralston’s deteriorating mental state and build to a nice message about the importance of connecting with the outside world using Ralston’s predicament as a metaphor for social isolation. It’s a nice statement, but more than anything else it’s a way off allowing the audience to enter Ralston’s altered state of reality (something Boyle mastered in the remarkable Trainspotting). The way the director makes the audience feel every moment of pain an emotion is incredibly raw and visceral. Yes the amputation scene is hard to watch and as it should be (several faintings were reported at festival screenings), but by the time he finishes the task the overriding emotion is elation rather than disgust. The audience is so geared into Ralston’s mental state by that point that you’ll be cheering for him to cut it off, even if you watch the scene through shielding fingers.
But of course, with a one-man-show like this the director can only do so much. 127 Hours is a film that is dependent entirely on its central performance and fortunately James Franco was the perfect choice. The actor has been doing a great deal of stunt casting lately from his hilarious stoner in Pineapple Express to his campy cameo on General Hospital. Starring in a one-man movie is a bit of a stunt as well, but one that shows just how good of an actor Franco truly is. The guy has never been given a meaty dramatic role to dig into before and he vividly recreates every moment of pain, shock, worry, depression, exhaustion, and finally elation that Ralston experienced. It’s an amazing performance that should put him to the front of the pack for awards consideration this year and deservingly so.
Danny Boyle also has a shot of grabbing another Oscar himself for 127 Hours, which is every bit as inspirational as his previous movie if more difficult to watch for obvious reasons. It’s also far more complex and interesting than the drippy sentimentalism of Slumdog Millionaire and while that might scare off some viewers, anyone with an interest in the craft of filmmaking simply must see the movie. It’s a very impressive piece of work combining the talents of an actor and a director working at the top of their game. All that and you get to see someone cut their own arm off. What more could you possibly want from a movie.
