James Franco always struck me as an actor who gravitates towards serio-comedic roles that play up his charm, likability and ridiculous handsomeness without failing to put him across as a fast-rising star who gives convincing, appealing performances. In Milk, he came close to an Oscar nomination for his part as Sean Penn’s thoughtful lover, and most recently he snuggled up to Julia Roberts as her sensitive rebound flame in Eat Pray Love.
For his latest role, though, in Danny Boyle’s riveting 127 Hours, Franco channels his inner wild thrill-seeker to play 27-year-old hiker/mountain-climber Aron Ralston, a carefree (reckless, too) adventure junkie who nearly loses his life after being trapped in the most unimaginable of circumstances. Based on real life events chronicled in Ralston’s book Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 127 Hours is Boyle’s gripping, intense follow-up to his Oscar-winning triumph Slumdog Millionaire that serves as welcome reminder of the director’s stunning visual style and gift for thought-provoking meditation on the human experience.
Boyle and Slumdog writer Simon Beaufroy provide the screenplay, with an upbeat, powerful soundtrack from A.R. Rahman, another Slumdog collaborator. The cinematography, largely capturing sun-baked mountainous landscape, is simply spectacular. But the movie’s true appeal and thrill lay in Franco’s tour-de-force portrayal. (Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara make appearances as a pair of sweet-faced hikers that Ralston meets.)
In April 2003, Colorado native Ralston heads out to Utah’s Canyonlands National Park for his usual pleasurable indulgence and solitary escape into a past-time of fun geological exploration among a series of tiny passageways and cliffs that, with one wrong step or turn, can easily imperil your life. Ralston becomes living confirmation of this danger when he falls into a crack and a gigantic boulder pins one of his arms against the massive stone structure. Trapped without a soul to come to his recue, Ralston’s cries for help are fruitless. His camcorder and a raven that circles the sky above his canyon prison are just about his only company.
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Article comments
1 - Heloise
Lots of research has been done about people who dare the outdoors with reckless abandon and those who survive and why make for good case studies.
This is all a euphemism for plain pigheaded. I want to see the movie and wondered where the climax of him cutting his arm off lay. I heard people walked out it was so bad.
It sounds like a boring movie leading up to a riveting climax.
2 - Tim
This looks like it will be amazing. Always wonder if I would do something similar if I needed too. Looking forward to watching it and thanks for a great review!!