Director Danny Boyle (left) and star James Franco on the set of “127 hours.”
James Franco gives the performance of his career in Danny Boyle’s spellbinding treatment of the real-life survivor story of Aron Ralston. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
True-life tales of survival are a dime a dozen on TV these days, but I’ve never seen one anything remotely like Danny Boyle’s dazzling and utterly riveting “127 Hours,” which takes you deep inside the mind of a young man struggling to free himself from a remote Utah cavern.
Back in 2004, extreme athlete Aron Ralston — played in an Oscar-friendly tour de force by James Franco — was trapped when his hand was crushed under a boulder in a hiking accident.
It’s only fair to warn you — and this is not really a spoiler — that it’s clear almost from the outset that Ralston’s only way out is going to require cutting off the now-useless limb.
Having performed that duty, I’d recommend you stop reading now and head for the nearest theater to experience this movie without any other previous knowledge.
If you need more convincing, I have to report that Ralston, in deep denial about the situation (he will pass through all the other stages of grief along the way) tries to free himself by chipping at the boulder, then tries using an ingeniously deployed series of ropes and pulleys.
Ralston abandons an early stab at limb removal because he’s equipped only with a cheap, dull blade — and focuses on more immediate problems, like the cold and a very limited supply of food and water.
Like all great movies, “127 Hours” takes us on a memorable journey. Which is not easy when 90 percent of the movie takes place with a virtually immobile hero in a very cramped setting.
Boyle, who directed the Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire,” suffuses this film with remarkable energy and visual inventiveness.
Ralston’s nimble mind toggles between memories, dreams and ever-elaborate delusions. I’m not going to describe these except to note that after seeing this, you’re likely not going to think of Scooby-Doo in the same way ever again.
Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara turn up in the first 10 minutes as hikers who Ralston guides to an underground lake. There are also very brief glimpses of his friends and family — most recognizably, Treat Williams as his father and Clémence Poésy as the ex-girlfriend he remembers spending the night with.
But for the bulk of the film, Ralston is utterly, totally alone, alternately cursing and mocking his fate — not to mention his selfish refusal to tell anyone where he was going.
He uses a camcorder to record a diary — a useful device for eloquent and moving soliloquies about just how far his pursuit of thrills has isolated him from humanity — and ruefully funny gallows humor.
As my colleague Kyle Smith noted recently on his blog, the screenplay by Boyle and his “Slumdog” collaborator Simon Beaufoy specifically omits the conversations with God, or prayers if you like, that Ralston mentions in the memoir — “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” — that the movie is based on.
But there’s a palpable spirituality suffusing Franco’s fine performance — when Ralston finally emerges from the cavern with a beatific look on his face, it’s clear this young man found a new appreciation for life.
Nothing that Franco has done before will prepare you for his work here.
Stunningly photographed by Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak — who repeatedly contrast the claustrophobic cavern and the gorgeous, sweeping vistas outside — “127 Hours” is easily one of the year’s best movies.
lou.lumenick@nypost.com