Screenplay Written by Jonathan Nolan & Christopher Nolan
Produced and Directed by Christopher Nolan
**** (four stars)
I wish I could just possibly understand just how Christopher Nolan accomplishes what he always sets out to do when he decides to craft another cinematic work. Each and every single time that I have had the pleasure to experience a Christopher Nolan film, I have been amazed, to varying degrees, how deeply he has been able to immerse me into a audio/visual journey, the kind of which where I feel a bit of internal transformation when I exit the theater.
To think, Nolan has taken all of us on enormously captivating yet deeply disturbing ventures through memories and madness with "Memento" (2000) and "Insomnia" (2002); competition, ego and violent hubris via dueling magicians in "The Prestige" (2006), the labyrinthine dream worlds in "Inception" (2010) and of course, his transcendent Dickensian presentation of the Batman saga with "The Dark Knight Trilogy" (2005/2008/2012), and all with a masterful filmmaking hand with weaving a collection of mind benders that also stirred the soul.
With "Interstellar," Nolan returns with what is definitely his most ambitious undertaking to date, as he charts a path from Earth past Mars and Saturn, through wormholes, black holes, time and space and a variety of astrophysical dimensions and back again while firmly keeping the love story between a Father and daughter at its core. This three hour experience truly provides Nolan with his most extreme sense of the journey one can have while sitting within a theater seat and while his ambitions sometimes elude his grasp here and there, the overwhelming effect of "Interstellar" made for one of 2014's furthest reaching films.
Set in an undetermined future, Earth's existence hangs in its most precarious state as natural resources have been depleted to the point where society has regressed to becoming a farming civilization. The presence of deathly dust storms have polluted to atmosphere to its most inhospitable state thus propelling the planet close to collapse.
Matthew McConaughey stars as Cooper, a widower and former NASA test pilot, astro-physicist now turned farmer who lives with his teenage son Tom (Timothee Chalamet), his aging Father-In-Law Donald (John Lithgow) and his beloved 10 year old daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy). Cooper soon discovers a secret NASA installation community where is then is recruited by Professor Brand (Michael Caine) to pilot a space craft through a wormhole on the outskirts of Saturn to potentially find a new hospitable planet for humanity, a decision which causes a near irrevocable rift between Cooper and Murph.
With the aid of geographer Doyle (Wes Bentley), physicist Romilly (David Gyasi), Professor Brand's daughter and biologist Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway) and an oversized sardonic boxy robot named TARS (Bill Irwin), Cooper departs Earth with the hopes of saving civilization, most notably his daughter, whose generation just may be the last to exist on earth should the team fail in their efforts.
While the plot itself may appear and lend itself to being nothing more than "Armageddon 2," Christopher Nolan clearly has conceptually much more on his plate. The titanic and towering shadows of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) and Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" (1977) loom tremendously large over Nolan's proceedings and with dashes of James Cameron's "The Abyss" (1989), Robert Zemeckis' "Contact" (1997), Alfonso Cuaron's "Gravity" (2013) and Andrei Tarkovsky's "Solaris" (1972) as well. Even so, Nolan remains no cinematic copycat. Yet, what his film shares with those aforementioned titles is a more serious and therefore realistic representation of what the experience of travelling through outer space would be like combined with an equally serious and profound take for what the presence of interstellar worlds spell for our collective humanity itself.
All of that being said, the warmth inherent within the sense of discovery and exploration has been completely jettisoned for a more, and appropriately fraught landscape of feverish despair and desperation. "Interstellar" hinges much closer to Kubrick than Spielberg as the film is undoubtedly and defiantly a dark experience that proves to be Christopher Nolan's coldest and most clinical film to date. Yes there are action set pieces, otherworldly thrills and splendidly realized cosmic visions to be had, but Nolan has not crafted an escapade or space opera. "Interstellar" is a grim tale of survival and the often futile possibilities that success could even be reached in the first place.
Nolan gives us a complete collective of characters who are all caught within the encroaching claws of anger, regret, recrimination, depression, grief, failure, and decades long bouts of resentment, all qualities that certainly give the quest for survival an added weight, purpose and realism but I will say does make the experience of watching "Interstellar" somewhat joyless, especially as planetary extinction is imminent.
To that end, Nolan also gives us a few characters who are dangerously duplicitous and incorporates them into a pointed cultural commentary about our political and even societal denigration of Science, which will possibly lead to our downfall just as much as our own sense of hubris that lies at the heart of our inflated perceptions of our own human intelligence and scientific capabilities. It is a particularly bleak future vision that Nolan, like Terry Gilliam's "Twelve Monkeys" (1995), just might be saying that human annihilation is simply inevitable.
Which makes the tension between Cooper and Murph that much more palpable and urgent because when Cooper leaves Earth, there are no guarantees that he will even return at all or that even she will be alive if he does. Their need to communicate and connect supplied the film with its turbulent soul, a film which showcases a universe that is as unpredictable and as unforgiving as the Earth has now become. Even time itself works against Cooper and Murph as Nolan, obviously extending his time altering landscapes of "Inception" even further, has created a story in which one hour spent on another world in another galaxy could be seven full years on Earth. As Cooper explains to Murph before he departs,"When I come back, we could even be the same age." Or the parent who only wants to save his child may even outlive that child simply due to time and space travel. There simply is no safe place anywhere and that's why the film's love story really moved me, despite some reviews that found any notions of emotional sensitivity laughable. The hope to see that cherished person for even just one more time carried a heartfelt fragility that for me, spoke to the central conceit of our collective existence and our relationships with each other. This was a hope that never felt to be a Disney-esque fabrication. It was the tether that provided the connective tissue to life and the endurance of the human spirit itself.
Matthew McConaughey's re-invention of himself as an actor has continued beautifully. Within "Interstellar," Nolan has essentially taken McConaughey's devil-may-care persona and then propels him through time and space itself yet always keeping him firmly grounded to just seeing and saving his daughter. Some astoundingly presented sequences very late in the film (and of course, I will not describe) showcase McConaughey's newfound sense of gravitas and for me, the effect of his completely physical and psychological performance was primal. And Anne Hathaway, along with strong performances by Jessica Chastain and Casey Affleck, aided and supported McConaughey with confidence and grit.
From a visual standpoint, "Interstellar" is a sumptuous presentation, all the better when screened on the luscious and grainy warmth of 35MM film as opposed to digital. Awards season has better give much acclaim and accolades to Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema for the gorgeous visual design as well as for Nolan's special effects team who utilizes physical objects and landscapes as a preference to the rampant CGI technology. And while it may have been irritating to some, I was thoroughly engaged with Composer Hans Zimmer's innovative score which prominently featured the pipe organ to grandiose effect.
But I do have to make note of my issues with the film's sound, issues that I have been reading about over the pas week. Now initially, I was very concerned about the film's volume as I had read that some IMAX screenings had their speaker systems blown out, thus prompting me to bring a pair of ear plugs just in case. Well...it turns out that I never needed them as he sound was indeed not unbearably loud at all. In fact, there were many portions of the film, especially during the film's surprisingly quiet as a tomb middle hour, where I was just straining to hear actual lines of dialogue which seemed to be whispered. Another moment, this time featuring Michael Caine, was practically unintelligible as it was a collection of barely audible mumbles. Yes, I understand that Nolan thinks that audiences will be able to understand the gist of what is going on and that he is possibly using dialogue as more of an Robert Altman-esque effect but even so, the technique did irritate me at points, especially as the actors are giving performances that suggest the most crucial information is being given...if only we could hear it,
Yet, those issues did not deter the overwhelmed feeling I experienced at the conclusion of "Interstellar," a film which indeed make me feel as if I had extended my consciousness to the furthest reaches of the universe. I am gathering that within subsequent viewings over the years, the greatness of "Interstellar" will only continue to reveal itself to me as the mysteries of the universe as well as the soul continues to merge together.
While some may scoff at the actual science of the film, I hate to break it to you, "Interstellar" is not a documentary. But what Christopher Nolan, a filmmaker who only continues to push, challenge and just flat out try in ways that most filmmakers have long forgotten, has achieved with his remarkable and wide reaching film is a meditation about how the science informs the spirit and how the spirit informs the science, making the two inseparable and essential partners as we navigate our place in the universe.
And how hope and love remain, even when human beings may soon cease to be.
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