Ominously strange cosmic events are happening in the skies above Paris in The Gravity, French-Burkinabé writer-director Cédric Ido’s ambitious blend of social realism, science fiction and family psychodrama. As the planets mysteriously align, turning clouds red and making the stars visible even in full daylight, a rupture in the fabric of universe appears to be imminent. Meanwhile, in the immigrant-heavy suburbs that girdle the French capital, a cosmic calamity is just one more problem to add to the pile alongside squeezed finances, gang crime, racial tensions and more.
Heading for its European launch in Oldenburg Film Festival this week directly after its Toronto world premiere, The Gravity marks Ido’s solo cinematic feature-directing debut following his warmly received collaborative drama Chateau (2017) plus a handful of TV credits. Moving beyond gritty cinema de banlieue classics like La Haine (1995) and Les Misérables (2019), it puts a refreshingly original spin on multicultural French suburban life, with a gripping pace and sharp look, even if the fuzzy narrative get a little lost in the stars. A positive festival run and genre-friendly elements should help secure the wider audience that this imperfect but enjoyably off-beat thriller deserves.
The Gravity opens with splashy swagger, lavish James Bond-style credits and an arresting flashback of two young brothers falling from a skyscraper apartment block in slow motion. In a slick visual segue, Ido then jumps seamlessly forward to the present day. One of the brothers, Daniel (Max Gomis), is now an aspiring athlete with a serious shot at the big time. His hot-tempered older sibling Joshua (Steve Tientcheu) was not so lucky, and has been a wheelchair user since he was injured in their childhood accident.
The brothers both still live in the same high-rise concrete banlieue north of Paris, although Daniel is making secret escape plans with his partner Sabrina (Hafsia Herzi) that he dare not mention to Joshua, who considers leaving the “hood” an act of treachery. Joshua scrapes an illicit living as a drug dealer, but his business is increasingly thwarted by the brutal young bike-riding gang who now supply the estate with a mysterious new synthetic stimulant. Calling themselves “ronin”, as in samurai warriors without a master, this highly organised, ruthlessly vigilant group also appear to have a sinister cult-like agenda beyond mere profiteering.
The uneasy balance of power on the estate is upset by the reappearance of Christophe (Jean-Baptiste Anoumon), a gifted artist and long-time friend of the brothers, who has just returned from a spell in prison for drug dealing. Vowing vengeance on whoever betrayed him to the police, his suspicions fall on the ronin gang, drawing Daniel and Joshua with him into an explosive confrontation that climaxes in the labyrinthine tunnels beneath their apartment block. Meanwhile, the blood-red heavens and daylight stars seem to signal trouble ahead. There is a great disturbance in The Force.
Ido and his cinematographer David Ungaro shoot The Gravity with great visual brio, elevating a drab huddle of concrete buildings into a eye-catching theatre for conflict and drama. The film is also full of striking production design and effects elements including Joshua’s pimped-up wheelchair, which reconfigures into a Transformers-like fighting machine, and a mystical tree which the ronin transport to a high-rise apartment rooftop for cryptic ritual purposes. The stirringly dramatic orchestral score by Evgueni and Sascha Galperine is another classy touch, giving the production a widescreen, old-school Hollywood feel.
Less impressively, the tonally erratic screenplay seems unable to decide if it is a social-realist crime drama, kinetic action thriller or cerebral sci-fi allegory, pinballing between genres without mustering the full force of any. Dark hints of human sacrifice, mysterious new drugs and impending astronomical disaster mount up in the plot’s latter stages, but are never fully explained. The result is an ambitiously rich mixtape movie that is ripe with great ideas, but oddly lacking in cohesion, never fully delivering on the promise of its suspenseful set-up. Ultimately, The Gravity lacks gravity.
Director, screenwriter: Cédric Ido
Cast: Jean-Baptiste Anoumon, Max Gomis, Steve Tientcheu, Oliver Rosemberg, Thierry Godard, Hafsia Herzi
Cinematography: David Ungaro
Editing: Nassim Gordji-Tehrani, Thomas Fernandez
Producer: Emma Javaux
Music: Evgueni Galperine, Sacha Galperine
Production companies: Une Fille Productions (France), Trésor Cinema (France)
Sales company: Kinology
Venue: Oldenburg International Film Festival
In French
85 minutes
