127 Hours Review: A Testament of Will

Danny Boyle used his leverage from his Oscar win for directing Slumdog Millionaire to make 127 Hours, a film the is unconventional in just about every way possible.

127 Hours is based on the true story of Aron Ralston. Ralston is a hiker and canyoneer that stumbled into a crevasse near Moab, Utah where his hand was caught under a boulder. For five days, or 127 hours to be more precise, Ralston was trapped by the boulder before severing his own arm to free himself.

The movie is interesting in its construction in many ways. Aron is a loner, he never told anyone where he was going before venturing out into the wilderness. Therefore, no one was looking for him. So there isn’t any cutting back and forth between Aron and the people trying to save him. Once he gets trapped, we remain with him in the canyon. Very rarely do we leave it. And when we do, it is only in flashbacks to earlier moments in Aron’s life, and only when Aron is thinking about these moments himself. This isn’t Cast Away. There isn’t a whole island to explore. There is just Aron, a rock, and a hard place. And yet it is utterly fascinating to watch.

A lot of this is due to the unexpected tone and style of the film. The movie opens with pumping music and split screens of urban landscapes crawling with people. Already it knocks you off guard from the somber tone you might have been expecting and gives you a film full of kinetic energy. Aron is someone constantly on the move. He times himself on his canyon runs, trying to beat the time listed in the guidebook. The film keeps up with his energy as he runs through the canyon until he is trapped under the boulder. Even then the film doesn’t lose its energy, but expresses it in different ways.



Aron carries a video camera and a still camera with him. As he is trapped, he begins to record notes to himself and his family or use his camera’s flash to see into the darkness. When he does, Boyle cuts to the perspective of these cameras so that we can see the situation even more clearly through Aron’s eyes.

James Franco does an amazing job in the role of Aron. He is constantly engaging. Whether he is trying to chip away enough of the boulder to pull his arm out or recording a message to his mother, you can see a world of emotion in his eyes. But the most interesting thing to note about the performance is just how funny it is. Aron is constantly cracking jokes to keep himself sane and help him through the things he has to do to survive. When he has to resort to drinking his own urine, he declares that it is no slushie. At one point he records himself interviewing himself as if he were on a late night talk show. But Aron is not a fool. He realizes just how horrible a situation he has found himself in. And all credit to Franco for portraying that.

Franco’s performance is nearly an entire movie of standing in one place, yet it is one of the more dynamic performances I have seen this year. He is always doing something. He’s trying to pull himself free. Or he’s recording something for his family that he may never see again. Or he’s trying to get the last few drops of water out of the bottle. He’s always trying to survive. And in these moments, even during the laugher, there is something stirring in Franco’s eyes. Doubt. Regret. Fear. Desperation. You can see it all there, just below the surface, and see that he is trying to keep it from bursting out. Because if that comes out, he gives up and dies.

It is worth noting the graphic level of the film. When Aron cuts his own arm off…it is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to watch. It is excruciatingly long and detailed. My arm hurts just thinking about it. But you have to show it that way. You can’t just gloss over it. It is important to see how difficult an obstacle that was to overcome, to see the level of determination Aron has to survive. It shouldn’t be easy to watch.

With 127 Hours, Boyle and Franco have crafted a film that is engaging in every frame. It is a movie about one man trapped alone under a rock, yet it is bursting with energy. This is a film about the human spirit, the thing that connects us all. It is a film that shows that no matter what, no matter how horrible the steps that need to be taken, no matter how dire the outcome, human beings will fight to survive. And even at its ugliest, that is a beautiful thing to watch.