Danny Boyle’s latest, 127 hours, divided audiences when it played at the London Film Festival this year, few could deny the powerful performance from James Franco but Boyle’s visual flourishes were deemed by some as incongruous with the intimate nature of the film. For what it’s worth I really enjoyed it.

While we await the Uk release on the 7th of January Empire have posted some pretty decent on set pictures of Franco and Boyle hard at work in the beautiful surroundings of Moab, Utah.

If you’ve seen the film then it’ll be easy to imagine the logistical constraints of the shoot, and in these pics we get to see a little of how Boyle and Franco worked together. Telling the true story of Aron Ralston, Franco is certain to pick up a Best actor nomination come awards season and the film is certainly an original and, at times, extremely grisly, story well told.

Here are the pics,