It pulls you to Earth everyday. It keeps you from floating off into space. Much to your dismay, it pushes the needle higher and higher on your bathroom scale. It daily pains the bones in your feet and yet, it eludes definition. Even scientists can't quite explain it.

On a poetic level, the film works rather well. Are there painful moments in your life's history that obstruct your forward progress? Are you holding onto events in your past that weigh you down like gravity? Isn't it time to let go? If you could choose life over limbo simply by letting go of your favorite tragedies, would you?

On a cinematic level, the film has some powerful visuals, some real tension and thrills, and a strong performance by Sandra Bullock. But it lacks an anchoring beginning and ending, leaving the film itself a bit in limbo perhaps by design. However, had the central character's tragedy been effectively established (with a simple credit-role dream sequence), the entirety of the production would have been fortified with a compelling emotional level as well. As it is, the emotional elements are introduced nicely, but sorely and loudly underdeveloped, leaving this cinematic event feeling incomplete and unaffecting beyond its duration. Which is unfortunate, because such a spacious opportunity was aptly created. But for as much as I fault this film for being too thin (and pontificate about how grand it could have been), I have to admit that time flew by while watching it as it is.

-- Books by Author/Illustrator Ross Anthony --