Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Ent.
Yes, I know the film came out over a month ago, but I
finally got a chance to see Interstellar last night. It was worth the wait.
Christopher Nolan is the only filmmaker whose movies I go see in the theater
simply because I know he made them. The guy is that good. But even before I saw
Interstellar, I knew it had much more going for it than just a fantastic
director. First, it centers around the exploration of space, the inherent
loneliness in that endeavor, and the enduring love of family that even the
vastness of time and space cannot compensate for or conquer. Anyone that’s read
my short story, Vestiges, knows these are themes that are near and dear to my
heart. Interstellar also boasts an amazing cast that includes Matthew McConaughey,
Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, and Jessica Chastain.
The story starts off by depicting a near-future Earth that
has been decimated by blight. The world’s soil is so ruined that crops won’t
grow, food is short, and the human population is nearly wiped out.
McConaughey's protagonist, Cooper, an astronaut-turned-farmer, is recruited for
a mission to explore a wormhole that’s appeared near Saturn. Probes have been
sent through this space anomaly and it’s believed that three planets exist on
the other side of it that might be capable of sustaining human life. Cooper is
asked to leave his family behind in order to investigate these planets along
with fellow explorers Brand (Hathaway), Doyle (Wes Brantley), and Romilly
(David Gyasi). Michael Caine's Professor Brand explains that this is humanity’s
last chance for survival. If the mission fails, humankind is doomed to die
along with the planet.
Cooper’s young daughter, Murph, is especially devastated by
her father’s departure and her heartbreak weighs heavily on the space pilot as
he embarks on the long journey that he knows will take years even in the best
case scenario. Trouble soon arises and the astronauts begin to perish one by
one as they struggle to overcome difficulties that result in the mission dragging
out much longer than any of them ever anticipated. Knowing that every hour so
deep in space equates to years back on Earth, Cooper and Brand race the clock
to find a habitable planet in the hopes they can do so and find a way back to
their loved ones before it’s too late.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Murph has grown up. Played as an
adult by Jessica Chastain, Murph has become Professor Brand’s protégé and is a
brilliant scientist in her own right. Still broken by her father’s abandonment,
Murph dedicates her entire life to figuring out how to evacuate the world’s
population so that they can leave for the new home her father swore he’d find.
I won’t give away any more of the plot, but Nolan does a
wonderful job of making us feel Cooper and Murph's anguish, Cooper’s subsequent
guilt, and both Cooper’s and Murph's determination to meet again somehow even
while the fate of all humanity swings in the balance.
Han Zimmer's score perfectly builds tension where needed and
bombast when appropriate. There’s a docking scene in the latter half of the
movie that will have you on the edge of your seat the images and music are so
well done. Some of the louder scenes, such as their take-off from Earth, are
nearly ear-splitting.
The film isn't perfect. At 169 minutes, it covers a ton of
territory and not all of it succeeds. Some of the dialogue feels a bit leaden
and Matt Damon is completely miscast as a supposedly charismatic explorer that
led the first “Lazarus” missions into the wormhole years ago, but I still
walked out of the theater feeling exhilarated. Nolan’s skill, ambition, and
dedication to his craft have made every one of his last eight films, starting
with the year 2000’s Memento, favorites of mine. Interstellar is no exception.
I highly recommend you go see it on the big screen while you still can.
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