Film review: Interstellar soars and astonishes before fizzling out predictably
Director Christopher Nolan takes viewers through a wormhole into a galaxy beyond our own in his latest cinematic epic
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine
Director: Christopher Nolan
Category: IIA
Oscar winners Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway headline – and a few other Academy Award honorees also are part of – the star-studded cast of this sci-fi drama that’s set in a near future when humanity is imperiled due to the Earth having been ecologically ravaged.
Nonetheless, there’s little question that filmmaker Christopher Nolan is the main man behind this super ambitious blockbuster epic, with its director and co-scriptwriter (along with his brother Jonathan) looking to be credited for all of the film’s inspired high points – and also being held responsible for its staggering lows.
Interstellar begins fairly innocuously in a part of the world where cornfields still dominate the landscape but ever larger and worsening dust storms provide signs that terrible disaster looms. At a time when people struggle to grow enough food crops for humanity to live on, the likes of engineering graduate and flying ace Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) have turned his hands to farming, with his stoic son Tom (Timothée Chalamet) reconciled to spending his adulthood tending to the family farm.
A widower who also has a spirited young daughter, Cooper tries to care for his two children the best way he can, even if it includes trying to convince Murph (played by Mackenzie Foy as a child, and Jessica Chastain as an adult) that a poltergeist has not taken up residence in her room. As improbable as it sounds, Cooper’s investigations into what’s actually happening in Murph’s room leads the two of them to a hitherto secret facility established by Nasa scientists whose head, Professor Brand (Michael Caine), is an old acquaintance of his.
Shortly after learning of their planning a journey beyond our galaxy through a wormhole to scope out a distant solar system for new planets to call home, Cooper is asked by Professor Brand to pilot the spaceship whose expedition team includes Professor Brand’s scientist daughter, Amelia (Anne Hathaway). Against the strong objections of his daughter, Cooper accepts this mission whose success will ensure the survival of humankind but failure means that all hope, and humanity, will die.
The first hour or so of this expansive, close-to-three-hour-long movie establishes that Interstellar is a father-daughter drama at heart, with not just one but two key father-daughter pairings being introduced to the viewers. At the same time, especially after Professor Brand and his daughter enter the picture, this film also subjects its audience to no small amount of scientific jargon and gobbledygook.
All this notwithstanding, Interstellar soars and astonishes after Cooper and his fellow space explorers rocket away from earth. Especially when beholding the amazing worlds that Christopher Nolan is able to imagine and then create onscreen, it’s hard to not feel awe at the vastness of his vision.
However, the way the film ends also clearly shows that there are indeed limits to his creative abilities. So very predictable (if you’ve seen your share of Hollywood works) and ruled by emotion rather than intellect, it has many viewers ruing what could have been, even if not outright ruining the entire movie for them.
Interstellar opens on November 6
