Early in the film, when Matt asks Ryan what she likes best about their space walk, she replies, “the silence.” The Cuarons would have been wise to supply a bit more of it.
When was it last at the end of the credits so quiet in the cinema? Only the breathing sounds of the side people are heard, then breaks from somewhere a soft “wow” the spell. It is as if the audience has to make sure only gently 90 minutes from the brilliant “Gravity“, to be truly arrived on the ground.
No sooner is the fatal message arrived, hurtling approach a huge swarm and debris hitting the shuttle. Stone and Kowalsky, connected by a lifeline to survive the collision and find themselves floating in space again.
The uncertainty of the universe
But this cold, clear moment where everything speaks of self-sacrifice, giving way to rote acquired automatisms, courageous ignorance about probabilities and defiant pragmatism: They like the last two people up here to be, but in leaving their train passing ruins of the civil space waiting might yet a return flight ticket.
Against time and any chance to go to Stone and Kowalsky on their very own Space Odyssey. A laborious and dangerous progress that holds Cuarón in beguiling, extremely long takes. In them catch the captivating beauty and existential horror of the cosmos, are not considered in the underground certainties.