127 Hours Movie Review

This movie was quite abstract. I went into it open minded since I found it hard to imagine how a director would go about making a two hour movie about a guy whose arm is stuck behind a rock engaging. James Franco, of course, is an amazing actor and his emotion and spirit really made the movie work while he played rock climber Aaron Ralston. Most of the movie trailer revolves around a very small section of the movie. I had hoped the whole movie would be filmed from the perspective of Ralston (Franco) documenting himself with the video camera. These scenes in the trailer are both funny and enlightening about the character’s personal development and overall plight. In the movie its self, we don’t get to see Franco narrating to the camera until about half way through or better.

While entrapped in the rock slit, Ralston (Franco) begins to hallucinate about everything from his family, to Scooby Doo. That’s right, at one point there’s a rather disturbing scene where Franco dreams up a giant Scooby Doo which is about to attack him. Scooby, we find out, was never real and Ralston (Franco) then wakes up. At first it’s a rather disjoint scene that doesn’t fit the movie but with a little analysis we can see that the director is trying to show Ralston’s mental dissolution and we can see that our hold on reality, as humans, is really quite fragile. The story really gives us, as an outdoor community, a sense of humility as we see Ralston re discovering his humble self. In the face of death we see how truly vain our choices can be.

Check it out. This trailer is easily one of the most inspirational clips I’ve seen in a long time! The Funeral by Band of Horses kicks in at the end to tug on the emotional ties of Ralston realizing that he’s going to die alone. Very powerful film, but dry at times.