Interstellar - Review

The hype surrounding Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar has been palpable. There seems little doubt, that for better or worse, it’s set to be the filmic event of the year.

I desperately tried to book IMAX tickets for the opening night over a week ago, only to find that every single seat was booked out. Even the 11.30pm screening, which probably didn’t finish until 3am, was completely full. Fortunately, I managed to secure prominently located seats for the following night, showings for which were also fully booked.

Having raked in close to $20 million on its opening night (with limited release), Interstellar is already showing financial promise, currently amassing more than last year’s sci-fi box office smash, Gravity. Boasting a marathon running time of 170 minutes, Interstellar’s plot is bolstered by dark stars and wormholes, with the casual exploration of five-dimensional-space and a healthy dose of time travel thrown in for good measure. It doesn’t exactly scream audience accessibility, does it?

What then, can Interstellar communicate about the film industry? It would suggest that tent pole blockbusters don’t have to be bland and meaningless, it tells us that audiences will pay to see high concept, extravagant filmmaking, and that not everyone is satisfied with another stale Transformers sequel. Most of all, it would suggest that audiences are much smarter than studios give them credit for, and that people will watch anything that emerges from the mind of the mighty Christopher Nolan.

It’s almost tempting to skip the plot summary entirely, not only because it’s immensely difficult to construe comprehensibly and acutely, but for fear of giving the game away.

Suffice to say, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a former NASA pilot turned farmer, scratching a living from a dying Earth with his two young children. When things take a turn for the worse on the blue planet, Cooper is persuaded by former mentor Professor Brand (Michael Caine) to embark on a perilous mission in order to find a new home planet for the human race. Aided by Brand’s daughter (Anne Hathaway), and astronauts Doyle (Wes Bentley) and Romilly (David Gyasi), Cooper confronts the consequences of interstellar travel and sets out on a monumental adventure to save mankind.

Chris Nolan has long mesmerised us with his uncanny ability to harness the power of the image, a talent inherent in only the greatest of filmmakers – the Kubricks, Malicks and Spielbergs of this world.

Think back to the brilliantly savage, alien landscapes of the Alaskan wilderness in Insomnia. Or the menacing figure of Batman perched atop a skyscraper, silhouetted by the shimmering lights of a Chicago skyline. Or the city of Paris magnificently folding on itself in one of the many vast dreamscapes of Inception. Or Tesla’s mist covered fields swathed in luminous bulbs of light in The Prestige. The list is endless, Nolan’s imagery saturate his films with a sense of wonder rarely experienced in the modern multiplex.

Interstellar itself certainly doesn’t skimp on wonder; a brief visit to a planet submerged entirely in water is nothing short of breath-taking, while another planet - completely engulfed in ice and rock – features frozen clouds that hover low in the sky.

In an early, earth bound sequence, Cooper doggedly pursues a surveillance drone he spies gliding across his farmland. The sequence that ensues is positively Malickian in nature, with Cooper’s pick-up truck ploughing through seemingly endless fields of lush green corn; a savage clash of machine and nature.

Yet despite the visual splendour now so associated with a Nolan production, one cannot help but feel that this is new territory for the visionary filmmaker. Don’t be fooled by the sterility of space, and the parched soil of a dying earth, for this is a far warmer Nolan enterprise than which we have become acclimatised to.

It’s a well-documented fact that Steven Spielberg was formerly attached to Interstellar, and it’s not difficult to see why the story might appeal to the veteran director. The awe inspiring sense of wonder that Interstellar so successfully conveys to the audience has been notably absent in cinema as a whole since the glory days of Spielberg and Lucas in the early 1980’s. But it’s the intimate father-daughter dynamic, so crucial in holding the intergalactic adventure together, that would have drifted nicely into the bearded wonder’s wheelhouse.

While many of Nolan’s previous films have featured parents estranged from their children, they rarely seem to evolve past the point of progressing the narrative. The loving relationship that binds Cooper to his children – especially his daughter, Murph – is the beating heart of Interstellar.

When Cooper is finally presented with the knowledge that in order to save Murph, he must leave her, Nolan lets us have it. The heart wrenching goodbye between father and daughter early in the film would threaten even the most steely of eyes with a tear, and despite the visual panache, one of Interstellar’s greatest moments is centred on a father stricken by grief at having missed his children growing up. One wonder’s if Spielberg himself could have done better.

Which brings me nicely on to McConaughey, a man reborn. Cooper is the latest in a long run of knockout performances for the Texan actor. Enjoying what is quite possibly the biggest comeback since John Travolta sought solace in the character of Vincent Vega, McConaughey is currently sitting pretty atop Hollywood’s elite. Next up – Gus Van Sant’s Sea of Trees, you can just about hear the Oscar buzz already…

Also impressive is the young Mackenzie Foy as Murph, her strong performance instilling the film with much of its emotional heft. Nolan regular Michael Caine is ever watchable, with strong support offered by Jessica Chastain, Casey Affleck, Wes Bentley, and John Lithgow. Anne Hathaway, clearly eager to work with Nolan again after her scene stealing performance as Selena Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises, struggles through a clunky monologue around the film’s midway point, but is otherwise excellent as Brand’s daughter.

Veteran composer Hans Zimmer returns to score Interstellar. Like previous Nolan/Zimmer collaborations, the soundtrack is loud, really loud. There are even times when the thunderous music actually renders the dialogue of characters incomprehensible, which is a minor gripe, albeit a frustrating one. The score itself is of a more classical nature than previous collaborations, which certainly lends itself to the theme of space travel – established long ago by the marriage of classical music and cosmos bound adventure in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I’m actually surprised I’ve made it this far without mentioning Kubrick’s magnum opus, for its influence is undeniably felt throughout Interstellar. Then again, has there been a “space” film released in the past five decades that has somehow managed to evade 2001’s gravitational pull? I think not. That being said, comparisons to 2001 are not unjust. Both Kubrick and Nolan are transfixed with exploration, and with knowing the unknowable – ultimately, are we alone in the universe?

Rather than ignore 2001’s existence entirely, Nolan subtly acknowledges its influence on his vision. Artificial intelligence construct TARS at one point threatens to blow Cooper out of the airlock, a faint reference to HAL’s on board revolution in 2001. Even the very design of TARS is startlingly similar to 2001’s mysterious monolith.

In Nolan’s film, interstellar travel is only made possible because somebody – referred to only as “they” – created a wormhole near Saturn. Likewise, in 2001, Dave Bowman’s ultimate journey is only made possible because “somebody” located the all-powerful monolith next to Jupiter. It’s also possible to draw similarities between the climaxes of both films, although I won’t go into details for fear of spoiling Interstellar’s significantly less ambiguous ending.

Perhaps what 2001 and Interstellar have in common most of all however, are brilliantly intelligent, ambitious directors, unprepared to compromise in pursuit of their immense visions. Upon its theatrical release back in 1969, Kubrick’s 2001 split both audiences and critics down the middle. Now, five decades later, it’s widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. While nowhere near as ambiguous nor as challenging as Kubrick’s visionary creation, Interstellar will likely prove divisive for many, and only when the dust finally settles will it be possible to compare the two epic productions.

Combining the visceral thrills of event cinema, the heart and soul of Spielberg’s finest, and the uncompromising vision of Kubrick’s 2001, Interstellar is a work of colossal ambition. True, it may not fire on all fronts all of the time, but the greatness of Interstellar more than makes up for any nagging complaints – be it clunky dialogue or tacked on exposition.

With Interstellar, Christopher Nolan reminds us of a time where we looked up at the night sky in awe, rendered insignificant by the promise of a universe just out with our reach. Interstellar is ultimately a tale of hope, love, and sheer, reckless ambition.

In a modern world where we are forever looking downwards, scrutinising videos of dancing cats on our iPhones, it’s important to reminisce every now and then.

See it.

Now.

On the biggest screen you can find.