Danny Boyle's 127 Hours is a jaunty little exploitation picture with prestige movie cred. By now you probably already know that in 127 Hours, James Franco's character -- based on real-life adventure boy Aron Ralston -- saws his forearm off with a cheap, not-particularly-sharp multiuse tool, an act of desperation that's necessary to save his life when he becomes trapped in a claustrophobically narrow Utah canyon. That arduous sawing -- it's more a smooshy kind of hacking, if you want to know the truth -- comes near the end of the movie, though it's also the dramatic centerpiece, the moment we're all waiting for from minute one. There's no suspense in 127 Hours, only anticipation: We know what we're there for; we just need to hang around to see how it plays out.
But damned if Boyle, with the help of his star, doesn't make the experience almost... cheerful. You might even leave the theater whistling a little tune. How the hell does Boyle pull that off? None of this is intended to undersell the horror that Ralston suffered in real life. (The movie is based on his book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, adapted by Boyle and Simon Beaufoy.) And Franco is such a warm, sympathetic presence that watching him suffer is no picnic. Yet the most excruciating moments of 127 Hours don't set its overall tone. As unpleasant as the arm-sawing is to watch, by the time it comes along, it's just a necessary means to an end (or a stump). What matters more is the part of the story that comes afterward, the chunk of life that Aron would have missed out on if he hadn't the fortitude to sever his own limb. Boyle just alludes to that life, and only at the very end of the movie, but it's a specter that gives shape to everything before it. As Boyle seems to see it, Aron didn't leave much of anything behind in that cave: He took the valuables and ran.
The movie opens with a portent, montage-style, of what's to come. Franco's Aron is getting ready to leave his apartment for what ought to be a routine canyoneering adventure: We see the all-important water bottle being filled, in the sink, to overflowing; a hand gropes on a shelf for a Swiss army knife that's just out of reach -- we can see it, but our unfortunate hero can't, the movie's first little sick joke. Everything else in the story is rather straightforward, albeit presented via crazypants, show-off filmmaking: In telling the story of Aron's predicament and ultimate triumph, Boyle uses numerous split-screen effects, lots of zig-zaggy cutting, all kinds of hallucinatory flashback trickery, and close-ups of certain things you probably would rather not look too closely at (like a parched contact lens being pinched off a bloodshot eye or a pint of preserved pee slooshing around in a camel bag).
Aron's trip involves driving out to a glorious locale (Canyonlands National Park, in Utah), then clambering onto his mountain bike to get to the specific slot canyon he's interested in exploring. Along the way he meets two cute hikers (played by Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn), whom he'll think of frequently in the six days to come: After he says good-bye to the girls -- having impressed them as a thoroughly loopy, Phish-loving, rock-climbing nerd, a part Franco plays to the hilt -- he sets off on his solo journey. He steps on a rock he thinks is secure, only to find that it's not: He slips into a crevice, and the boulder tumbles after him, pinning his arm to the wall.
Aron calls upon every available resource to solve this little problem: He sets a variety of accoutrements he's brought with him (a video camera, a stack of credit cards, his watch, that all-important cheap multi-tool) on the rock before him, as if it were a little worktable. He begins using the tool to chip away at the rock, an existential exercise in futility. He worries aloud about what will happen when his water runs out. He keeps a video record of his daily activities and observations, noting, for example, that he sees the same raven fly overhead every morning at the same time. He thinks about an old girlfriend (played, in flashback, by Clémence Poésy). He mounts a goofy faux radio call-in show, where he's both host and caller, and tapes somber good-bye messages to his family. Stupidly -- and he admits this stupidity to himself many times over in the narrative -- Aron hasn't told anyone where he's going.
It's a small miracle by itself that Boyle and Franco sustain a 94-minute movie that takes place mostly in a crevice that's barely wider than Franco's shoulders. But 127 Hours actually has a much broader setting, in Aron's alternately wise-cracking, alternately despairing mind. Aron talks his way through the movie's minimal action, more often than not making jokes at his own expense, which is why Franco is so perfect for the role: He's an actor who loves self-deprecation much more than he loves himself. As Aron, he chuckles to himself at his own lousy puns; he mutters in frustration at the uselessness of the lame tool that will eventually save his life. I'm now convinced I wouldn't want to see this movie with anyone else in the role; Franco's scruffy-dog charm is the thing that keeps the story buoyant. He seals self-pity, even self-doubt, out of the performance. As Franco plays him, even when Aron is trapped, he's always moving forward.
Of course, there's a jumbo-sized macho challenge at the heart of 127 Hours: Are you man enough to take the tough stuff? I've seen the movie twice, and I can report that the crucial scene is highly unpleasant -- "ewky" is the decidedly unmanly word I would use to describe it -- though Boyle doesn't draw it out unnecessarily. The sound design may be even harder to take than the visuals, particularly the "BZZZT" that sounds when Aron hits a particularly sensitive nerve bundle: It's as if someone were playing a highly amplified game of "Operation" in your head and doing a crap job of taking out the funny bone.
But the worst is over before you know it, and Boyle wastes no time getting on to the next thing, which is the beginning of the rest of Aron's life. The first time I saw 127 Hours I felt both exhilarated and exploited, just a bit, in the cruel way. The second time, I still felt a little exploited, but I also had more admiration for Boyle's unabashed, right-on-the-surface showman wiles. As long as you have an idea of what you're in for, 127 Hours is more weirdly entertaining than it is grim. As macho challenges go, it's really just a pussycat.