127 Hours: Rock solid

In 127 hours, the story of Aron Ralston's triumphant survival is given the depth it deserves.

A movie that drags on far longer than it should and is called 127 Hours is just baiting hacks to make oh-so-predictable jokes. I did just that with the opening sentence of this review before deciding it would be unfair. Director Danny Boyle, who has morphed from British indie king to major Hollywood player with the success of Slumdog Millionaire, has crafted a movie that, despite its bloat, has worthy performances, a gut-wrenching conclusion and plenty of introspection.

127 Hours is a true story that centres around Aron Ralston, played by James Franco, a party boy who indulges his love of the outdoors by going mountain climbing. Trapped by a boulder for the titular length of time while on a solitary climb, he transforms into a self-conscious prophet of his own fate. The movie has a strong supporting cast, including Amber Tamblyn — but ultimately the weight of the movie lies on Franco’s shoulders. He doesn’t disappoint, and 127 Hours belongs to Franco and him alone.

It’s hard to figure out James Franco. His first role is still his most memorable: as the sensitive, wise-cracking teenager in Judd Apatow’s prematurely-cancelled TV show “Freaks and Geeks.” At the time his career seemed to be mapped out for him. Apatow’s troupe is a tight-knit bunch that has created its own safe space for raunchy, lovably misogynist comedies. Actors like Seth Rogen and Jason Segel, both of whom are also “Freaks and Geeks” alumni, didn’t waver from their Apatow devotion. Franco, however, moved on first to meaty roles in Oscar-bait movies like Milk then decided he was going to moonlight as a painter, short-story writer and Yale student. With 127 Hours, he’s making his pitch to be Hollywood’s best young actor and damn if he hasn’t succeeded. Franco manages to convey the agony and pain of his predicament without being too showy. Unlike, say, Sean Penn he doesn’t need to ham it up to deliver an effective performance.

Boyle, in a break from his usual technique, is similarly restrained — at least in the scenes in the mountains. He uses a simple two-camera set-up to film Franco, making 127 Hours as gritty as his breakthrough film Trainspotting. But then there’s the bloat. Like he did in Trainspotting, Boyle pads the film with hallucinations, in this case Franco’s remembrances of his past, carefree life. Franco’s hazy memories are unneeded; filling us in about his life’s most meaningful moments isn’t necessary to this survival story.

A word of warning: there have been reports of viewers who needed medical assistance after watching Franco, umm, extricate his arm from the boulder. That denouement may the most haunting sequence in cinema this year and it is certainly the most grotesque. But it all but ensures that James Franco will be nominated for, and possibly win, an Oscar for his tour-de-force performance.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2010.