'127 Hours' shows the spirit of adventure and the triumph of the human spirit

One of the most thrilling recreational activities is a trip through nature. It gives you the freedom to go anywhere and do anything you want. It's exploration without limits. That's why when you watch a film where nature is a character itself, the viewer can relate to the nature they see, and grant it with some recognition of having tackled a landscape they see before them, be it a waterfall, a forest, or a vast desert. There's something about exploration that fuels our senses with adventure, and a film can do that to you as well. That's why Danny Boyle's latest film, 127 Hours (based on a true story), is a real nature piece. The audience takes the journey with its star, James Franco, and travels across the wilderness with him as he navigates the great outdoors and is faced with the most challenging of adventures: the will to survive.

Aron Ralston (James Franco) is an all-American nature boy. On a Friday evening in April 2003, he decides to leave home and spend the weekend exploring some canyons in the Utah wilderness. He finds some temporary company on his one-man trip when he meets two hikers, Megan and Kristi (Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara). They relax in an underground hot spring, and then eventually part ways. Afterwards while climbing through a canyon, Aron gets his arm caught between a boulder and a canyon wall. The next five days will cause him to look back on his life and will test his ability to do the impossible.

Based on Ralston's autobiography Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 127 Hours is a film that belongs to James Franco. His moving performance is one of the best of the year, in that he does a lot with his character, despite being stuck in one place for much of the film. What starts out as a journey of survival then also turns into a journey of reflection. Ralston tells much of his backstory via a handheld camera he places on the boulder. It is with this that we see why he is the adventure-hungry person he is, as well as his regrets and his flaws. All of his flashbacks are told with such lucidity that you get a true sense of his past, even though the flashbacks are only a couple of minutes long. He is exposed to us despite being confined from everything else. Even though we all know that Ralston survives his ordeal, watching him make his final video for his family is still melancholy and transfixing.

Danny Boyle and cinematographers Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak use sweeping camera movements to capture the spirit of adventure felt by Aron as he bikes and hikes across the Utah canyons. Although areas of his travels are mostly dirt and rock, there's a certain beauty to be felt here as we examine the wonders of our own backyard. For Boyle and fellow screenwriter Simon Beaufoy to write a story that keeps the audience enraptured as the protagonist is trapped in one place for most of the movie is one of the biggest accomplishments in film this year. It's never boring or tedious. You learn his history and who he is as a person, all the while sitting in your seat with bated breath as you wait to see how far Aron would go to survive. Forget what you see on those nature-survival reality shows. 127 Hours is better, much better.

Final grade: A