Christopher
Nolan’s Interstellar is the movie
equivalent of a chef armed with truffles, foie gras, and Wagyu beef grinding it
up into meatloaf. The film’s cast is impeccable, the practical effects
stunning, and its underlying ideas about space and exploration universal. Yet
the outcome is more pedestrian than revelatory. The film unravels because of an
overcomplicated plot and underwhelming theme.
Nolan, as
he often does, has assembled a stellar cast. Matthew McConaughey continues his
string of strong performances by playing against his hyper-masculine type. In Interstellar, he stars as Cooper, an
astronaut-turned-farmer-turned-astronaut. Mackenzie Foy plays Murph, Cooper
daughter, and their chemistry drives the emotional beats of the film. Nolan
populates the film with actors far too qualified for their roles. Michael
Caine’s NASA scientist instigates Cooper’s journey to the stars. Anne
Hathaway’s Amelia, another scientist leads the NASA crew on the spaceship Endurance. Bill Irwin voices TARS, a
multi-limbed robot, who helps and humors the crew during their journey to a
black hole in orbit near Saturn. TARS’s relationship with Cooper is the most
grounded and realistic in the entire movie. The rest of the cast includes
Jessica Chastain, John Lithgow, Casey Affleck, William Devane, Ellen Burstyn, Wes
Bentley, David Gyasi, Topher Grace (looking like he’s just happy to be there)
and a surprise unbilled A-list actor.
The visual
effects of Interstellar are
remarkable. Nolan mostly eschewed CGI in favor for practical models for his
depiction of space travel. His attention to detail pays off in a number of
visually striking scenes. Saturn’s rings glitter and as the Endurance approaches its date with an
artificially created wormhole. The camera remains fixed as the Endurance glides through space, spinning
on its axis. Never has space looked so majestic. Nolan’s view of space is the opposite of
Alfonso Cuarón in Gravity. Where Cuarón
stressed the claustrophobic and deadly nature of outer space, Nolan revels in
its splendor and beauty. In Gravity, death
and emptiness lurked around every corner. Protective spacecraft could easily
become a deadly projectile. In Interstellar
space is the next stage for mankind’s achievement—challenging, but awe
inspiring.
Interstellar’s themes and plot unravel
everything good about the film. It is clear that Nolan is an advocate for
mankind’s continued exploration of space. Our future lies out there, the film
constantly reminds us. To call his method of delivering this message heavy
handed would be an understatement. In a terribly written scene, Cooper laments
to his father-in-law (Lithgow) about mankind’s failure to continue its space
endeavors. He laments, “We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place
in the stars, now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.” On
a future version of Earth where ecological disaster has ruined the planet’s
food supply, maybe that sentiment is understandable? Later when the film shifts
to space the heavy handedness continues. With the Endurance only capable of visiting one of two planets capable of
sustaining life, Hathaway’s Amelia opts for the one where her lover is. In
defending her position, Amelia argues that “Love is the one thing that
transcends time and space.” The power of love and importance of discovery are
hardly unique or new themes.
Further the
overstuffed plot dooms these themes further. At two hours and forty nine
minutes, the film radically shifts in plot making it seem like three or four
movies crammed into one. Interstellar begins
as a movie about an ecologically ravaged Earth, struggling for survival. With a
radically reduced population mankind has become a people of Dust Bowl era
farmers. With Cooper’s discovery of NASA, the film becomes about mankind’s
potential salvation through a wormhole. A mission of survival soon yields to
easily excised conspiracy thriller. Meanwhile back on Earth, Murph (Chastain),
now fully grown, struggles to save humanity from her end. This divided focus
drains the plot of momentum as it toggles back and forth between the ever
changing Endurance mission and Murph’s
efforts to solve the problem of extricating Earth’s population to safety. In
the last act, Cooper joins the two plots together by journeying into the black
and proving that love does in fact transcend time and space. Love transcends
time and space? Fantastic. Glad a film studio spent 165 million dollars on that
one.
Due to his
success with the Dark Knight trilogy and other films like Memento, Inception, and The
Prestige, Nolan had a rare opportunity in Hollywood to make whatever movie
he wanted. He put this freedom to work with dazzling visual effects and
reminded us of the wonder and majesty of space. He surrounded himself with a
marvelous and overqualified cast. Instead of putting them to their best use,
Nolan squandered them on a heavy handed, simplistic, and ultimately empty film.
