Reviews

Interstellar (2014) - Film

Quick Summary: This visually glorious space fantasy is thought-provoking and mostly enjoyable. Unfortunately, the last few minutes of the film, where a character abandons a major goal just as he achieves it, stink.

Title: Interstellar

Release: 2014

Director: Christopher Nolan

Starring:

Matthew McConaughey (Cooper)

Anna Hathaway (Brand)

Mackenzie Foy (Young Murph)

Jessica Chastain (Adult Murph)

Bill Irwin (TARS)

Interstellar is a space fantasy that trades on themes of family, love, and hope. It is beautifully shot, it has interesting characters, and it has a lot of fun moments. Unfortunately, the last five or ten minutes of the film stink, but I suppose we can't have everything.

Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a frustrated farmer living on a dying earth. He once flew with NASA, but those days are over. The family – Cooper, his father-in-law (John Lithgow), and two children – barely manage to eke out a living. They grow corn and nothing but corn, the only crop which has not succumbed to a blight that thrives in earth's nitrogen-rich atmosphere. Daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy) is a bright girl, but she's convinced her bedroom is haunted. Something – or someone – pushes books off of shelves and makes patterns out of dust on the floor, and Murph is certain that she can decode these messages.

At first, Cooper is unconvinced by Murph's declarations, but soon he realises that the dust patterns really are coded messages. A set of co-ordinates leads to an underground bunker where NASA scientists are working on a space station. Their hope? To rescue the people of earth by transporting them to a planet in another galaxy. How will they get there? Well, a wormhole has appeared near Saturn. A small group of people have already been sent to scout out which of a dozen planets is the one humanity should use as its new home. Three of them have sent messages back, indicating that their planet might be the one.

At this point, what had been a supernatural family drama morphs into a space saga. Along with snarky scientist Brand (Anne Hathaway) and wise-cracking robot TARS (voiced by Bill Irwin in a wonderful performance), Conner sets off to try to contact the three space travellers and confirm which, if any, of the three planets will be humanity's new home. Cooper aches to leave his children, knowing that this trip could last decades, but he goes anyhow – this may be his only chance to save them.

The film is visually gorgeous. Earth is a dusty mess, but the lush cornfields extend forever under a blue sky. Space is silent, and dark, and the delicate space craft move gracefully in an inky void. The planets the travellers discover are each distinct and eerily beautiful, as well as rife with symbolism. The influence of 2001: A Space Odyssey is obvious, with visual references and a few shout-outs in dialogue. While not a perfect film – the space segments move slowly, there are a couple of places where characters allow the themes of the film to falter for no discernible reason – the film is mostly enjoyable.

I say mostly because I absolutely hated the last few minutes of the film. If you haven't seen the film yet, I don't want to spoil it for you with details. Suffice it to say that love – whether filial, parental, romantic, brotherly, or even for the self – is the major motivator for most of the characters in this film. At almost the very end of the film, one of the characters, motivated by love, achieves the goal that has been pushing his actions for most of the movie. Then he just throws away his achievement for literally nothing. I wanted to throw something at the television screen. Still, I do recommend the movie – just stop watching when there're still a few minutes left, okay?