Courtesy Movie Poster DB
Rating: B-
Director Christopher Nolan – known for a repertoire of fantastic movies that includes “The Dark Knight” and “Inception” – reaches for the stars with “Interstellar” but may have missed the mark this time around.
As with their previous films, Christopher Nolan and his writer brother Jonathan Nolan bring a rich world to life on screen in “Interstellar,” and, initially, this formula works.
The film begins at the dusty farmhouse of Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) – a widower, farmer and former engineer and astronaut – and his daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy), son Tom and father-in-law Donald (Jon Lithgow) somewhere in a United States that is recovering from a recent war and famine caused by a biological pest called “The Blight.” In the years after the global conflict, nations and armies have dissolved, dust storms rage across the world, and the most important industry becomes farming corn, which is the only crop that is “Blight” resistant.
After a series of strange events involving clues left behind by Murph’s “ghost” in her room at the farmhouse, Cooper finds himself at a bunker that now houses what is left of NASA. As a last effort to save the human race, Professor Brand (Michael Caine) enlists Cooper, his daughter Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway), Romilly (David Gyasi) and Doyle (Wes Bentley) to travel through a wormhole that has appeared near Saturn to search for a planet in another galaxy capable of sustaining the human race.
At this point in the film, two separate story lines begin to unfold simultaneously: a grown Murph (now played by Jessica Chastain) with serious daddy issues on an ailing Earth, and Cooper and the astronauts traveling and struggling through time and space.
Visually arresting and well acted, the film increasingly and continually captivates the audience with its grandeur, spectacle and emotionality. This is what makes Christopher Nolan so excellent as a director – he is a master at slowly and steadily building to a huge climax and giving the audience just enough to keep them invested. But “Interstellar” is more like a rocket that, after hours of preparation, finally launches to only disintegrate before even leaving the atmosphere.
The film is a cinematic masterpiece until the third and final act. Until that point, everything works so well that it’s almost overwhelming.
Matthew McConaughey is mesmerizing as Southern-twanged, no-nonsense Coop. He carries the film masterfully until the end and brings an emotional depth and quiet strength to the character that someone with less skill may have failed to do. Anne Hathaway also inhabits Amelia Brand effortlessly, showcasing the interesting combination of cold wit and vulnerability that exists within the character. Jessica Chastain shines as an older Murph, managing to bring a fullness to her character that could have been hard to do with the little screen time given her. Even Matt Damon as Dr. Mann – a character the astronauts encounter on their journey – excels in his short but pivotal moment in the film.
The cinematography and production design are both dazzling. The moments in space are hauntingly beautiful, cold and detached. The hypnotic score by Hans Zimmer – who frequently collaborates with Nolan – is probably the best work he’s done in years and perfectly accentuates the mystery of space.
But the third act is like a black hole sucking in all of the excellence up to that point, leaving the audience lost and lonely in a dark abyss. The word “unfulfilling” was specifically created to describe “Interstellar.”
Instead of just being a science fiction movie about interstellar travel, the film expounds upon themes inherently present in the plot – love and sacrifice – through a New Age lens. While focusing on these themes is perfectly fine – the relationship between Cooper and Murph is central to the plot – the focus skews into something muddled and strange.
Perhaps the oddness and confusion of the third act is just Christopher Nolan admitting that time and space are actually unfathomable and incomprehensible concepts that he couldn’t mold into a satisfactory ending. Next time, Nolan should leave space to the experts. NASA, I’m looking at you.
Overall, “Interstellar” is a beautifully made but disappointing epic, and just like last year’s “Gravity,” you should probably see it in theaters to get the full experience. Hopefully, though, your journey into space will be more enjoyable than mine.
