Franco plays Ralston, a geeky guy whose obsession isn’t video games or computers, his obsession is the outdoors. An engineer by profession Aron dreams of making his living as a guide and when we meet him, he’s home from work and packing up for a weekend to be spent under the stars and sun, wandering endless, remote canyons all alone. He’s confident in his abilities, perhaps with good reason, so he doesn’t bother to tell anyone where he’s going. Yet even an experienced hiker, with a head full of survival knowhow, can’t prepare for everything.
We spend a few moments with Aron, before he’s trapped, as he races across the wilderness on his bike. On his way out towards solitude he’ll encounter two pretty hikers. They’ll invite him to a Scooby Doo theme party, and fantasizing about what it might have been like if he’d shown up is one of the many things that’ll keep him going during his long imprisonment. Most of the movie is spent there with him, trapped beneath a rock, for 127 hours. The only thing on screen is Franco’s Ralston, with no one to talk to, nothing to do but sit and struggle and despair. Somehow, Ralston never gives in to panic; he’s too capable, too smart. That doesn’t mean, however, he has a way out. Stuck there all alone for nearly a week, Aron will have plenty of time to think of everything he did wrong. The Swiss Army knife he failed to pack, the Gatorade bottle he left in his truck, the phone call from his mom he didn’t answer. Eventually he’ll have a choice to make. By the time he makes it, it’s almost not a choice, just a final desperate act to survive at any cost.
Another filmmaker may have wondered away from the one place, and the one character but it would have been a mistake. I’m sure he realized James Franco’s Oscar worthy performance was good enough to keep the focus on him for almost the entire movie. Boyle attempts to find meaning in Ralston’s predicament, and he does. What has he done to find himself in this place? Ultimately Aron admits, everything. “The rock” he says, “has been waiting for me”. We get to experience what it would be like to have to make the gruesome life and death decision and then we watch him carry it out. You must see it once but I promise, you will not want to see it again.
The real Aron Ralston
