What Would You Have Done?
You cannot help but ask yourself this question over and over while hearing this story. Aron Ralston (played by James Franco) is an experienced canyoneer who loves nothing more than to go exploring the Canyonlands...by himself. As he shimmies down a tight fitting ravine, a boulder above him comes loose and they both go falling to the ground. Luckily the boulder misses Aron's body and head, but manages to crush his hand and pin his hand between it and the canyon wall. Now what? As the days go on and Aron fails in moving the rock or his hand and his cries for help go unheard he begins to dehydrate and slightly loose his mind. When he realizes he didn't tell anyone where he was going, he accepts his coming death and carves his own Rest In Peace sign into the canyon wall that will now serve as his tombstone. What would you do?
Just by the off chance that someone reading this doesn't know about this true story that happened in 2003 I'm not going to say what happens, I'm just going to say it will leave your chin resting on your chest for at least five minutes. Aron Ralston is amazing, albeit he was completely too confident and stupid in order to get himself into that mess in the first place, he is still pretty inspiring.
I knew the story before I watched the movie and have seen interviews with Aron and heard him tell the story in his own words so I knew what was going to happen, but this is one of those amazing stories that no matter how many times you hear it, that chin just wants to descend, leaving your mouth gaping open for the flies. The photography was great and the views of the Canyonlands amazing. The shots of Aron biking, hiking and falling were fantastic. I wanted to sit down and be floored by James Franco's performance but I guess I was less than awed. He was alright. His brightest moments in this were his scenes of hallucination (from dehydration). One in particular where he pretends to be on a talk show and plays both the host, himself and the audience. But I just didn't buy into his pain or exhaustion. I think Franco has promise and I expect great things from him in the future I just didn't get the amazing performance from him in this I had hoped for.
Motherly Advice: This movie is rated R for expletives (17 'F' words) and disturbing images of blood, gore and PAIN (understandably). My violence and disturbing images filters I had set on least because I already knew what would happen and didn't want to miss too much. *Spoiler Alert* I saw/heard him break his arm (once for each bone) but then missed the entire 'cutting arm off' scene, which I'm actually grateful for because apparently it was real gory. It just cut from him breaking his arm to him coming loose. *Spoilers Over* I had my sex and nudity filters on Medium and I think I'd rather have had the sex one on Most and I think I'll just leave it at that. There was quite a lot of beer references and Aron imagining he's at a party drinking beer and watching others do so as well. Along with the partying tone of the movie the music was terrible. ClearPlay had to edit quite a bit of the musical expletives and content as well.
With your filters set right I think this movie could be ok for kids 16 and up. I'd probably chat with them about what Aron did wrong in the first place and about how far one might go to save a life.
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