Movie Review: Interstellar
Rating: 4 Stars
The greatest moment of Interstellar was a tense scene where heroes: Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), Brand (Anne Hathaway), and Doyle, are on a planet where they age years every hour. They land on a large pool of shallow water searching for the remnants of a scientist with (possibly vital) information for survival. Looking out into the distance, I notice a giant tsunami wave that appears the size of the Empire State building. “That might come to play in a minute,” I think. The three characters mistake the wave for mountains on the horizon. When they realize that is actually a wave that is right on their ass, they are left with a decision: the data or death. After surviving the first onslaught by getting in the space vehicle and riding out the first wave, a second one rushes in and Cooper and Brand rush out. Doyle is seen later floating face down, he never made it back to the ship.
I love sci-fi movies because of their ability to stretch and alter the imagination to tell a story. Where sci-fi movies miss the mark is when the story isn’t as effective as the rest of the film’s devices. I’ve now been through a string of sci-fi movies where the story drives the elements of the science and the fiction. Interstellar is less of a drive and more of a brisk walk with its nearly 3-hour run time. But I admire its candor, and director Christopher Nolan’s willingness to tell this story at such a difficult pace.
Interstellar is less of a plot and more of a layered biopic. It’s a story about instinctual survival. At the center of this is Cooper, fighting for the survival of his family on the rotting carcass that is left of Earth. Earth is in a desperate state of survival itself that not even the New York Yankees can afford decent ball players. The early parts of the movie establish Cooper’s relationship with his 10-year old protege daughter Murph.
Unlike “The Martian”, Interstellar does not focus on basic survival needs like limited food and air in space travel. Plot devices such as these would bog the film down further than it should.
There’s a lot of deceit in human beings, but there’s also love. Both love and deceit lead to consequences. Both get in the way or lead to human survival in its most dire moments.
Besides the strength of storytelling, there’s a wealth of characters that are polarizing. The most polarizing being a robot with a chippy personality. The robot is TARS, how his AI works and exists is unknown but doesn’t matter. I laughed several times at his interactions with Cooper. The prevailing thought that he is programmed with 90% honesty is not only hilarious but leads to curiosity about the template of honesty, what should or shouldn’t we know? TARS states early on that his 10% of dishonesty is a necessary precaution.
Two other fantastic performances come from Michael Caine and Matt Damon. Caine is Professor Brand, and the father to the daughter Brand on the mission with Cooper. Damon is Mann, who was on an earlier mission to scout out inhabitable planets.
Both Professor Brand and Mann have their own stakes and play on the fragile life of Cooper and Brand who find themselves drawing closer together despite their differences.
To quickly understand how the space travel to another galaxy works, there’s a wormhole that Cooper and his team fly through. The wormhole leads to another galaxy where 12 former astronauts surveyed the land, the only one surviving was Mann who is in deep cryo sleep.
Professor Brand set Cooper and his team on the mission with the idea that Cooper could save the inhabitants of Earth. Professor Brand never held these sentiments though, and knew that Earth was going to suffocate and grow extinct of humanity.
Cooper’s daughter Murph learns of Professor Brand’s dishonesty while he’s on his deathbed and searches for a way to make interstellar contact with Cooper and save the lives of everyone on Earth.
Meanwhile, Cooper, Brand, and Williams, who are minus Doyle from the wave incident, meet with Mann who has been asleep and alone for a long time. Cooper learns that Mann had been sending out signals to the crew so that he could pirate their ship and leave them for dead. Mann effectively drives home the survival instinct plot point in a fight with Cooper. Williams is blown up by faulty technology triggered by Mann. Mann blows himself up when trying to dock on the main ship.
Mann’s data streams were all a ploy to get himself off of the planet, and leaves Cooper and Brand with TARS fending for themselves. This leaves Cooper to his last resort, flying into a black hole.
From there on, Interstellar makes its connections on everything it established since the opening of the film. Is it storytelling mastery? I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s the story I believe Nolan wanted to tell and he did it well.
There’s a lot to this film, and its easy criticism to say Interstellar may be too weighed down. I never got to a point where it felt to be too much though, the characters were engaging and there was plenty of intriguing mystery. Space has that advantage.
Interstellar does well on its closure and leaves you with a definitive ending with enough space (no pun intended) to wonder further.
I breezed over quite a bit, mainly because of the density of the film. Other honorable mentions were the importance and performance of Jessica Chastain and Mackenzie Foy who played the young and adult Murph.
Working on the sound and score of this film must’ve been a hellacious chore. It was good, and peaked at moments, but wasn’t lasting. Many of the scenes were vast and expansive, and the camera usually calm and smooth.
I wouldn’t say Interstellar is a movie that can be enjoyed by everyone, but I would argue it is a great movie nonetheless.
