First film of 2011: 127 Hours

When I came out of the cinema I tweeted how 127 Hours had made me feel sick. A friend responded:

It is a fair point. The film is based on a true story and few will sit down to watch without knowing that it's about adrenalin junkie Aron Ralston who falls into a canyon becoming trapped by the arm which he ends up amputating in a desperate attempt to free himself. Well if you didn't you do now.

But what made we want to see it, despite getting sweaty palms and feeling a bit squeamish just watching the trailer, was how he got to that point emotionally and physically. And that is what is interesting and engaging about the film.

Trapped and facing a slow, lonely and almost certain death gives Ralston time to reflect. Now that in itself might put some people off with visions of the film being series of flashbacks. It isn't. Ralston is an engineer and an experienced canyoner, albeit one who makes a near fatal mistake, so the story also follows his journey working through the 'problem' and potential solutions.

It is also a film about human physical and mental survival. He was in the canyon for five days having taken with him enough food and water for the weekend. (Yes, he drinks his own wee).

With Danny Boyle at the helm there are some imaginative devices used to move the story along, show the passing of time and his nutrition and fluid denied brain's inner workings. I'm not sure all of them work quite smoothly and delusion/fantasy scenes are always tricky to pull off without merely resorting to foggy edges.

However, there are some scenes in that film which have imprinted on my brain. Some of them are horrific and will deter me from repeat viewing for a long time. Others, like the moment he does finally free himself, are testament to James Franco's superb acting as Aron and Boyle's direction as you actually not only see the shock coupled with relief and disbelief on his face but feel it too as he steps away from his stone manacle for the first time in, well, in 127 Hours.

Slumdog Millionnaire it certainly ain't and it isn't without its flaws but overall it's an interesting, engaging and beautiful film.

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Last year I started rating films out of five and comparing them with the Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes scores given at the time of writing. This year I'll still be referencing M and RT but I'm going to change my own scoring to a percentage as scores out of five are a little restrictive. It'll also make my end of year review a bit more scientific. Well a bit.

So 127 Hours is rated thus:

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a staggering 93% from 164 reviews and an average user rating of 8.3/10

Metacritic gives it 82% based on 32 critics and a user score of 8.4/10

Rev Stan gives is 75% which may be slightly low but I've got nothing to compare it with this year.

And here is the full length trailer: