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Death + Humor

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Death Reference Desk Ho Ho Ho

Merry Christmas to all of our lovely Death Reference Desk Readers.

And remember to keep those Christmas Trees from spontaneously combusting.

Ho ho ho.

Categories
Afterlife Death + Art / Architecture Death + Popular Culture Grief + Mourning

Gravity is a Movie about a Dead Child

Gravity (2013)
IMBD (December 22, 2013)

 

Do not read this Death Ref post if you have not seen the film Gravity and would rather not read about the plot before seeing it.

You have been warned.

After much talking and planning, I finally saw the movie Gravity by Alfonso CuarĂ³n. It stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.

Almost all of the reviews I’ve read or heard focused on Gravity’s use of 3D effects (which are very well done) and the somewhat existential-metaphysical-slightly New Agey-religious language used by Bullock’s character Ryan Stone.

What very few people seem to realise, I think, is that Gravity is a film about a dead child and parent grieving over the unexpected death of that child. In this case, it’s Bullock’s character and her daughter who accidentally died while playing tag at school.

It is also a film about living people talking to the dead and this is something that both secular and religious people do (whether they admit it or not) on a fairly regular basis. It’s completely normal and part of what is often referred to as a Continuing Bond after a person dies.

Case in point, near the end of the film George Clooney’s character Matt Kowalski suddenly reappears even though it’s clear that he must be dead. Bullock and Clooney have a conversation about how to get back to earth, which pulls Bullock’s character from choosing to die and instead motivates here to return home. The scene concludes with Clooney’s sudden disappearance and Bullock asking him to say hello to her dead daughter.

Sure sure, the world’s entire fleet of space stations and ships are ripped apart by space debris during the film and there’s a survival story involved but it’s just the spectacle that underscores the dead child narrative. I also get the sense that some of the perceived neo-Theological/New Age Christian critiques come from the scene where Bullock speaks to the dead Clooney about the dead daughter. Again, I didn’t see that as particularly religious rather it was a grieving parent asking a friend to check in on a beloved child.

The real genius of Gravity’s meditation on life and death is this: I firmly believe Bullock’s character Ryan Stone dies in the moments before speaking with the dead Matt Kowalski and that the film concludes with her entering a secular afterlife.

Of a kind.