Danny Boyle’s ‘127 Hours’ turns a canyon into a countdown

Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours turns a canyon into a countdown. The film follows Aron Ralston, played by James Franco, after an 800-pound boulder pins his right arm against a wall in Bluejohn Canyon, Utah, on April 26, 2003. He told no one where he was going. Runtime: 94 minutes.

Trailer, via SearchlightPictures.

A Boulder in Bluejohn Canyon

The setup is spare. Ralston hikes Canyonlands National Park alone. He meets two lost hikers, Kristi Moore (Kate Mara) and Megan McBride (Amber Tamblyn), gives them directions, and shows them an underground pool. They invite him to a party the next night. He says goodbye half-heartedly and moves on.

Then the rock falls. He is trapped. That is the whole movie.

Five Days, 300ml of Water

Boyle and co-writer Simon Beaufoy, working from Ralston’s memoir Between a Rock and a Hard Place, keep the camera close. Ralston records a video diary on his camcorder to keep his morale up. He rations food and 300ml of water, spills some of it, and drinks his urine when it runs out. He chips at the boulder with a pocket knife, drops the knife, and recovers it with his bare feet and a branch. He rigs a pulley from his climbing rope. It fails. He tries to amputate with a dull blade that only makes shallow cuts.

• Franco as Aron Ralston
• Mara as Kristi Moore
• Tamblyn as Megan McBride
• Clémence Poésy as Rana
• Lizzy Caplan as Sonja Ralston
• Treat Williams as Aron’s Dad

Hallucinations and a Cameo

The hallucinations carry the back half: escape, relationships, family. Boyle stages them as bursts of image and sound rather than dialogue. A. R. Rahman, who scored Slumdog Millionaire for Boyle, handles the music. Ralston himself, his wife, and his son appear at the end.

What the Numbers Say

• Release: 5 November 2010 (US), 7 January 2011 (UK)
• Premiere: Telluride Film Festival, 4 September 2010
• Runtime: 94 minutes
• Worldwide gross: $60.7 million
• Academy Award nominations: 6, including Best Picture and Best Actor
• BAFTA nominations: 8; Golden Globe nominations: 3
• Metacritic: 82/100

The Case for Franco

Franco holds the frame for most of the runtime, and the film lives or dies on whether you believe a man talking to a camcorder. He makes it work. The amputation scene is the one everyone remembers, and it earns its reputation without lingering past what it needs.

The weakness is the frame itself. Once Ralston is pinned, the film has one location, one body, and one outcome. Boyle fills the space with technique, and the technique occasionally crowds the man.

This is a story about a hiker who made a mistake and paid for it with five days and an arm. It is also, more quietly, a story about telling someone where you are going. That second idea is the one that lasts.

8.2 of 10.

127 Hours · Aron Ralston · Danny Boyle · James Franco · movie review · survival film