Life (and a three-hour running time) made getting to see Interstellar a challenge, but there was still one local theater where it was still showing, and in 35 mm, no less. Nolan is a Champion of film over digital, so this was my fish-or-cut-bait moment.
And make no mistake, Interstellar is a genuine epic. A journey through a wormhole to the other side of the universe, with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. The canvas doesn't get much bigger than that.
There are a lot of surprises and mysteries in Interstellar, so I'm going to try to stay spoiler-free here, in case your circumstances have you waiting for home video.
In the near future, Earth's environment has made food production beyond difficult. Crop blight and colossal dirt storms are the bane of farmers like Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a widower with two kids who used to be a NASA test pilot. Nolan doesn't show us any future-scapes or much in the way of tech that makes this near future any different than the one we inhabit now. What we see is The Grapes of Wrath. The entire planet's become a dust bowl, science having evidently taken such a back seat that school text books have now been "corrected" to describe the moon landings as an elaborate hoax. References are also made to there being no more armies, possibly the most far-fetched suspension of disbelief in the film.
Circumstances conspire to bring Cooper together with the secret remnants of NASA, (led by Michael Caine) who've been working in the shadows on an immense project to send ships into a recently discovered wormhole in the orbit of Saturn - a gateway to another galaxy. Caine convinces Cooper to join other astronauts on a key mission through the wormhole in the hope of confirming a planet that could serve as a new start for mankind. The problem is that this voyage will take years, with slim chance that the crew will ever see their loved ones on Earth again. The parental angst and grief over the choice to leave family in the name of a greater good provides Nolan with some of his most intimate and emotional work yet. The relationship between Cooper and his daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy) makes for some of the strongest scenes in the film. Foy is tremendous and their scenes together give real humanity to the consequence and loss at stake against the seemingly inevitable forces of distance and relativity. Parental sacrifice for one's children is a major theme in Interstellar and it makes for an emotional and painful parting from which there may be no healing.
Once the journey into space begins, the pace quickens and the stakes escalate. Interstellar is all about the choices we make, and Cooper and his fellow astronauts are faced with the dilemma of exploring several potential new home worlds, with the caveat that each exploration will add years to their time away from loved ones and Earth. Those are brutal stakes to contemplate. Scientist Anne Hathaway is McConaughey's devil's advocate in the decision process, as they attempt to weigh the pros and cons.
I'll leave the rest of the plot on the other end of the wormhole for you to discover.
Interstellar is a film that depicts technology, science and space flight with tremendous fealty to realism and believability. It's also a story that asks the audience to be willing to make some leaps equivalent to those of the film's wormhole-exploring astronauts. For the most part, I was willing to suspend my disbelief and go through the doors Nolan opened. Not everyone will be so inclined. If you were someone who took issue with the plot and void of explanations in Prometheus, I suspect you're going to have similar problems here.
My biggest issues with the film involved the reliance on so much expository dialogue to explain what was happening and advance the story. The characters have a lot of explaining to do, and as the film unfolds. there's often more telling than showing. Also, the score by Hans Zimmer channels a lot of Philip Glass, creating an almost dirge-like monotone at times, and a mood that makes for a much more somber and depressing experience than was probably the goal. Films like Gravity and Europa Report are both easier on the audience, and ultimately a lot more fun.
Still, there is tremendous heart, vision and emotion at work here. Interstellar works hard to infuse equal parts poetry and soul alongside its scientific loft and thematic heft. Nolan's a visionary, and he's done a great job at infusing the films that shaped him (2001, Close Encounters and even Planet of the Apes) into his own unique vision, fueled by the message that it's our heart as well as our will that defines us and may ultimately be what saves us. It will take more than one viewing to properly assess Interstellar, but I'm looking forward to that next viewing. Nolan's epic deserves to be seen and should be appreciated on its own terms.
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