In his book An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, Chris Hadfield, former commander of the International Space Station (ISS), takes aim at the empty optimism of self-help books. Never mind thinking positive, he says — the real benefits come from preparing for the worst. This philosophy is common and necessary in space flight, and so, during ‘contingency sims’ on the ground, NASA officials would throw a series of unexpected and unfortunate events at Hadfield and his fellow astronauts, to test their responses and to work out how they could be improved. Busy dealing with an already deadly technical threat to their lives in orbit, such as a medical emergency, the trainee spacemen and women would be told: oh, sorry, but now a fire has broken out. And by the way, you’re leaking oxygen. Hadfield says he found it oddly comforting to be sitting around a table with friends and colleagues discussing, for example, how they would dispose of his corpse if he died in space.

Such a cascade of bad luck could have inspired the script of the deserved cinematic smash hit Gravity. (Yes, Nature is late to this, but the film only arrived in UK cinemas this month.) Just about everything that could go wrong for the astronauts played by George Clooney and Sandra Bullock does go wrong, so much so — and if you hate even the mildest of spoilers, then stop reading now — that when Bullock eventually splashes back down to Earth in a remote lake, the viewer is waiting for the two-tone soundtrack and the mechanical model shark from Jaws to appear stage right.

As Colin Macilwain explores in a World View this week on page 313, Gravity is loaded with political and scientific symbolism, some subtle and some less so. The three major space-flight powers — the United States, Russia and now China — are all represented on screen, and their differing roles in the plot say much about the status of space science back on the ground in the real world.

Macilwain also celebrates the benefits the film could have for the public perception of space science, which, he summarizes, can be indistinguishable from space exploration in the public eye. Funders and scientists have quibbled for decades over the true benefit of research conducted in orbit, especially aboard the horribly expensive ISS, but there is something glorious in the fact that it is there at all.

The best stories are true, they say, and even the most spectacular film is unlikely to enthrall and enthuse a generation like the grainy pictures from the Moon landings of July 1969. Gravityis a work of fiction, and ardent science-fiction fans will argue for years over how good it really is. (The Oscar meanwhile, seems to be in the bag.) With tongues somewhat in cheeks, physicists have been picking holes in the depiction of Bullock’s hair in zero gravity, and complaining about how the orbits of the space hardware seem to be aligned so conveniently for the plot.

But when you watch it, none of that matters. Gravity is a brilliant, dizzying, awe-inspiring and downright thrilling 90 minutes. And it will both enthuse and inspire. Go and see it on the big screen while you can. And, more importantly, take an impressionable teenager with you.