Movie review: Interstellar - 20,000 leagues over the sea
The single most definitive message of the movie is about love transcending time and space, two relative concepts that challenge the breadth and scope of human knowledge and experience. It is an audacious movie that is more personal than any other that Nolan has written or directed before. What started as mind-bending narratives on earth with Memento and the exploration of the deepest recesses of the mind in Inception has culminated in a narrative that explores the existential and moralistic identity borne though an emotion that is not quantifiable and yet holds the promise of more things than we can dream of.
Interstellar is set in a dystopian future where food is scarce and lives expendable. Cooper, a former NASA test pilot-turned-farmer, lives with his father-in-law, son and precocious daughter, Murphy. She believes there is a poltergeist in her room and this ultimately leads Cooper to a secret NASA facility led by Professor Brand played by Sir Michael Caine. Matthew McConaughey plays Cooper to heartbreaking perfection as the father fighting for the survival of his family by venturing into space and exploring the black hole in search of a planet habitable by the last remaining population on earth. He sets off the aptly named Endurance with biologist Amelia (Anne Hathaway), physicist Romilly (David Gyasi), geographer Doyle (Wes Bentley) and two artificially intelligent robots, TARS and CASE.
Cooper’s decision to join Endurance breaks Murphy’s heart, and they part on bad terms. The monologue delivered by McConaughey to Murphy could easily be Nolan himself and the honesty behind it makes it even more gut wrenching. The rest of the movie is a metaphorical struggle between what parents need to do to ensure the future of their children as opposed to what they want to do in the present. The film can get sentimental at times, but never trite. The Nolan brothers have perfected the art of making things come full circle, much like the black hole itself.
Jessica Chastain and Casey Affleck star as the adult Murphy and her brother, Tom on Earth. They have grown up to be the mirror halves of their father, with Tom working on what is left of the crops and Murphy working to solve Professor Brand’s equation at NASA. The genius of the narrative and the director himself will be evidenced at the two-hour mark of the official runtime, so you have to wait patiently, much like if you were watching Tarkovsky’s Solaris or Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Hoyt Van Hoytema has photographed this movie with the masterful stroke of an artist. He gives the movie heart with visuals that allow you to immerse yourself into the narrative without calling attention to them. Hans Zimmer’s score pulsates with an aching heart and adds an emotional depth to the film.
This movie is not without its faults. It is sentimental and most Nolan fans will find that unrecognisable since the director is often accused of being cold and aloof. That’s why Interstellar is near-perfect and not perfect. And like the movie, this review will loop back onto itself. The perfect movie is a myth. Some come close, some stray far. It is relative in the end. If it were perfect, Nolan would pack up because he wouldn’t have anything else to say. Someone try telling Christopher Nolan that. Or don’t. Good things always happen when he does things his way.
Vivan J Xavier is a cinematographer. He tweets @vivianjxavier
Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, November 23rd, 2014.
COMMENTS (14)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
@steel: Obviously I have no interest in watching bollywood crap but from the looks of wikipedia, no smoking has an item number (thats a whole different league of songs and unnecessary vulgarity). The pushpash seems to be a silent movie by nature. I am sure you had to come up with a lot of research to find bollywood movies without songs but you are still failing my friend!
@ Sid, your comment is a proof that you have zero knowledge about Science and Astronomy. Knowledgeable people all over the world are praising this movie which has made about half a billion dollars and on its way to make over one billion dollars but a Science illiterate person rejects it which convey the message to whole world the dire state of our education system. Before watching this movie again, try to get information about Binary coordinates, gravitational waves, black holes, gravitational time dilation, black hole's singularity, dropping mass, extra dimensional tesseract, Morse code and above all theory of relativity and wormhole. In one of the scenes in which three hours on far away planet are equal to twenty one years on earth is so stunning that a science student would watch it hundreds of times. If you haven't heard these science terms, then don't write this year's worst comment.
@Sarmad Hassan: ET has not published the name so I cannot help.
@Sarmad Hassan for the sake of the argument - "No smoking" or "Pushpak".
@vinsin: Really? Name me one famous bollywood movie which doesn't include dance and songs. Just one !
You should have mentioned spoiler alert at the beginning on you review
It was just not a regular science fiction, there was a lot of drama, lot of action and lot of actual science involved. I would say it was more of a more entertaining version of the documentary "cosmos".
@Sid: You could say you did not like the movie, its plot or the science behind it but plz plz do not compare it with Bollywood movies with its dance sequences as @ Sarmad has already pointed out. I have been a student of relativity and physics and the background theory applied in the movie was quite accurate, in relation to current state of theoretical physics. Does it not matter that Nolan took course in relativity at California Institute of Technology....an institution in the league of MIT, Harvard, Stanford etc. You did not enjoy the movie, fare enough, but cheesy ? outdated ? stupid ideas ? That's quite unfair, in fact, factually incorrect !
@Sarmad Hassan: You are funny but not all bollywood movies have dance and songs.
i agree it was an amazing movie , the score , cinematography , story line , science , every thing was amazing. But for me Nolan stretched it a little too far in the end , Still on of the best movies i have seen in recent years.
@Sid: dude, you lost me at "interstellar was cheesy, looked outdated and the ideas were as stupid as they come" and by the way bollywood wouldn't make such movie. It would definitely try to copy it 3-4 years from now and that would involve a random couple leading a team of random girls in sarees, all dancing in sync on some habitable moon of neptune.
interstellar was cheesy, looked outdated and the ideas were as stupid as they come. If bollywood made this movie we would laugh it off. However since nolen made it " oh wow superb. Perfect ". Most of u so called film critics dont have a clue what ure talkin about. Its ure personal preferance. Movies are made for the masses to enjoy. Well atleast even if your putting in scientific theories to test in the movie. At least dont mock them and make a joke out of it. 3 hours, most painfully boring, worst 15$ i ever spent. Word of advise for who dint watch it. DONT.
Excellent time at the movies!
Yes its almost perfect. Right up there with the most defining sci-fi movies, like Close Encounters, 2001 - A space Odyssey and AI.