Login
Is Interstellar truly worthy of the high star rating I have given it? Probably not, but goddamn if I didn’t admire its grand ambition, tremendous heart, and stellar acting ensemble enough to forgive its flaws. I happily went along its epic scope and large heart.
Taking place in a future where the present is beginning to look an awful lot like the Dust Bowl on a larger scale, we meet Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former NASA pilot forced into becoming a farmer. Farming is about all that currently happens on earth, despite massive amounts of crops dying out. Cooper is widowed and lives with his two children and their grandfather (John Lithgow), spending most of his days nurturing his daughter’s scientific curiosity and helping his son learning the farming trade. It’s not exactly a picturesque ideal, but it’s closest thing to a happy portrait of Americana that we’re allowed.
Through a strange series of circumstances, Cooper and his daughter, Murph (Mackenzie Foy as a child, Jessica Chastian as an adult and both fabulous), stumble upon what little remains of NASA and a secret project to find a new hospitable planet for the human race. Cooper must choose between abandoning his family and saving the planet, or sticking things out and watching everything die. Since the movie is three hours in length, and this is but the third act, it’s not a spoiler to say that he takes his chances in space.
It is here at NASA we meet regular Nolan player Michael Caine, this time as Professor Brand, a genius physicist, and his daughter Amelia (Anne Hathaway), a no-less brilliant scientist in her respective field. We will spend a great deal of time with McConaughey and Hathaway, depending on your tolerance for these actors, Interstellar is either going to be rough going or an enjoyable ride. I, clearly, found it quite enjoyable.
It was at some point last year when I turned the corner on McConaughey. It could have been his committed and better-than-the-surrounding-film performance in Dallas Buyers Club or the one-day marathon of True Detective’s first season that did it, probably both, but his work here is no less revelatory. His character is a split between wanting to explore and discover, and a fatherly need to return to those that love and need him. A scene in which he discovers a backlog of video transmissions from home is an emotional gut punch thanks to McConaughey’s smart acting choices.
I’ve long defended Hathaway, and I find much of the criticism against her rooted in some vaguely hinted sexism that demands that actresses not exhibit any kind of manic glee in career-changing milestones or exhibiting intellectualism instead of dumbing down and going for “they’re just like us!” artifice. Her previous work with Nolan resulted in her tremendously fun take on Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, asking her to play a 40s femme fatale and a sardonic grifter with equal weight. Her role here is a little underwritten in parts, but she’s strong enough to give it a gravity and weight that overcomes this obstacle.
The leads find the perfect balance that the rest of the film lacks. That is to say, McConaughey and Hathaway have found a way to make the big ideas and big heart merge into a coherent picture, whereas the rest of Interstellar sometimes dips too far one way or another. But I appreciate that it went for such grand pronouncements, it overreaches often, but I’m a big softie for something that tries and nearly succeeds more often than not and reward tons of points for trying.
Interstellar does however suffer from a similar problem as the rest of Nolan’s work – over explaining and re-explaining things over and over again. At times, this is necessary to understand and grasp the scientific concepts on display here. Most of the time it reintroduces characters and what they’re symbolic of or their position when this is not needed. I think of how Batman Begins played so heavily on repeating “fear” as a subtext and theme that it stopped being both (I still enjoy it greatly), or how The Prestige structured itself as the titular event and ended up being its own undoing. Nolan is a film-maker who likes to treat his films like strange puzzle boxes, explaining to us the rules, sometimes at the detriment to natural sounding dialog, but I don’t mind it. There’s room for all kinds of film-makers. And any director who takes a massive studio budget and crafts something this unique, ambitious, messy, interesting, sweeping, and personal is one that I will follow on any storytelling diversion he chooses.
