INTERSTELLAR
DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan
CAST: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, Topher Grace, Michael Caine, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow
CLASSIFICATION: 10-12PG
RUNNING TIME: 167 minutes
RATING: ***
CHRISTOPHER Nolan’s latest space drama is a seriously cerebral exercise which pits survival of the species opposite individual survival.
He tries to make personal a big idea of scientists and astronauts trying to save mankind, by finding us a new home and by giving us two father/daughter stories.
On the one hand there is Michael Caine and Anne Hathaway – he is the scientist leader of the project with the whole world’s fate on his shoulders, while she is the clever, dutiful daughter Amelia who takes his mission to the stars.
Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper character and his relationship with daughter Murphy (Mackenzie Foy as a child, Chastain as an adult and Burstyn as old lady) is the more complex one which forms the film’s mainstay.
Somewhere in the near future, as one of the few trained space pilots left, Cooper leaves Earth at the behest of Caine’s Professor Brand, and goes exploring with the promise he made to his daughter – that he would return home to her – always at the back of his mind.
Anyone familiar with the work of Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury or Harlan Ellison among others is going to see the problem with that promise, but work with me here.
Where his previous blockbuster, Inception, looked inward while messing with your perception of reality, this time Nolan looks outward to mess with your sense of self. What would you do to perpetuate the human species, to make sure mankind survives, even if you might not.
Not only does Nolan interrogate a really big idea, but the scope of the film is epic. He takes us to the stars and beyond, showing us just how miniscule we are on a galactic scale, literally creating new worlds.
He also descends into pseudo scientific mumbo-jumbo to dig himself out of a moon-sized plothole, but what the heck – aesthetically this is gorgeous.
Nolan introduces a 1.5m fun robot with an intriguing quadrilateral design and an accurate depiction of how a blackhole could work – accurate in so far as it is still very much theoretical at this point.
Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema has created some awe- inspiring sequences, drawing on some of his trademark qualities of precise framing (Think of how he framed shots in Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy to suggest the byzantine maze of the storyline) and amazing use of the contrast between light and dark (Her).
Scenes inside the spacecraft have an almost documentary feel since they were shot on real sets with the CGI saved for what is outside the window. The scenes in outer space have a thrilling edge of danger mixed with a cautious hope, especially when pitted against the scenes back home on Earth which are all dust storms and hopelessness.
Strangely enough, the film does exactly the oppposite of what the characters are trying to do in the story. In the film the idea is that warm human emotion will triumph over cold scientific logic – you cannot measure love, yet it is the one constant that is an unquantifiable reality for all humans. This love is what makes us what we are and why humans will save the day.
Interstellar, though, coldly foregrounds wordy exposition and shamelessly uses the spectacular visuals to grab you – the human element is strangely lacking.
McConaughey is engaging as the father who has to reconcile his adventurous side which wants to explore, with his duty towards the family he does truly love.
We totally believe that the Cooper character lives to explore space and is capable of overcoming all the problems that Nolan drops him into.
But we never really get into his head, or the head of any of the characters, who are faced with these huge, awe-inspiring vistas and challenges.
Serious doesn’t mean deep – but that’s Nolan for you.
If you liked Inception or The Dark Knight Rises, you will like this.