At 9:30pm, I stumbled out of the cinema, having concluded a 3-hour journey in Interstellar's universe. I felt dazed, awestruck, and quite stunned. This is quite normal for me if the movie was good, or at least sufficiently thought-provoking.
It was when I was sitting quietly at a bench at 11:30pm, still dazed, still awestruck, still stunned, and with the movie's soul-tingling soundtrack still ringing in my head, did I fully accept that I had witnessed something quite spectacular.
Interstellar is the 2014 product of Christopher Nolan and his familiar associates (scriptwriter Jonathan Nolan, composer Hans Zimmer, among others). There are a few things that naturally tend to result from this combination, none the least being that the movie tends to be, at worse, quite good. But another thing is that the movie is often the kind that makes my life as a reviewer difficult because there is little I can say about the plot before I start ruining it for potential viewers.
For this movie, I'll simply say that in a post-disaster world, a large portion of the population has been wiped off the surface of the earth, with some governments (India being one of those referenced) no longer in functional existence. Crops are affected by blight, leaving humanity's food supply slowly dying off and thus the future of our species in question.
At the start of the movie, the crop in vogue is corn, and former NASA test pilot and engineer Cooper - played by Matthew McConaughey - is one of the many farmers (also the career in vogue, for obvious reasons) planting and harvesting it, even though he would much rather be doing his old job(s). Regardless, he is presented as an outlier in that he remains extremely passionate about space exploration while the rest of the human race seems to be mainly concerned about restoring their own, tortured planet. This passion also influences his very bright and very stubborn daughter, Murph (played by Mackenzie Foy). However, due a series of events that I will not reveal, Cooper ends up making the hard decision to leave Earth and Murph behind in a last-resort mission to seek mankind's new home.
Not too long ago, I wrote about why I believed that Inception was the best movie of all time. Nolan fans will know that nearly all of his works reach critical acclaim, and will probably thus - regardless of whether Inception is also their favourite or not - be curious to know whether Interstellar is now the new title holder among his works. I will answer that question now: in my humble opinion, it isn't. It is flawed (and I'll explain why); not very, but enough to rule it out from being, objectively, the best film.
There is a big caveat in that statement, however. Interstellar may not be the best film from Nolan, but it can be definitely argued that it is his best work. I know that immediately sounds contradictory, but hear me out: the main reason why I'm able to make that claim is because while Interstellar is flawed, it is a flawed masterpiece.
Those who have read accounts by astronauts will notice that a common feeling after entering space - especially for the first time - is that of awe. Complete, inspiring awe that engulfs you and silences you, because you start to come to terms with the sheer size and scope of the surrounding universe. In the couple of hours of silent pondering after watching the movie, I realised that the awe I was feeling was similar - albeit smaller, of course - to what those astronauts speak of. What that means is Interstellar has somehow successfully encompassed the majesticness of space, and given the audience a taste of it.
And it's not just about the visuals, though they are really unmatched. The glorious panoramic views of space, planets, stars, even wormholes and black holes, combined with the extreme contrast against the (only relatively) tiny spacecraft sometimes elicited quiet gasps of wonder from not only myself, but my girlfriend as well. If you're planning to watch this all, I beg you to catch it on the silver screen before you miss the chance and face a definite regret later. Views from Earth are less spectacular, naturally, but the large-scale dust storms that plague the land are created very convincingly.
It isn't the cast either. The cast here is an award-winning one, and they do a satisfactory job. McConaughey is quite a good fit for his role: determined and passionate as an astronaut, relaxed and, when necessary, emotional as a father. The older version of Murph is played by Jessica Chastain, and she does a superb job, capturing raw pain sublimely. Anne Hathaway plays Cooper's teammate Amelia well, though that character is slightly underdeveloped. Once again, Nolan doesn't quite manage to flesh out the minor characters much at all, leaving characters like Doyle (played by Wes Bentley) and Romilly (David Gyasi) to feel more like stand-ins than anything else. However, Michael Caine's Professor Brand is rather interesting, but I want to highlight Matt Damon's Dr Mann as a particular standout. He only had about 20 minutes worth of screen time, but quickly revealed himself to be one of the most conflicted characters in the film. Props to Damon. All in all, though, while the cast did a good job, I won't call any of their performances something remarkable; what separates it even more from other Nolan films is that while his protagonist focus is clearly still there, it isn't as overshadowing as something has Leonardo diCaprio or Christian Bale in it.
Interstellar asks you many philosophical questions. What exactly is love? Why do we love those who die, and place so much faith in this feeling that no one can really claim to understand? Can a man truly withstand the overbearing pain of being very, very alone, lost in the universe? It extends to a highly scientific level too: time and gravity are thoroughly explored in this film, so relativity enthusiasts are going to have a field day.
One moment that hit me when reflecting on the film was when Cooper was forced to make a momentous decision between the human race and his own daughter - the fact that its such a difficult decision to make, even though the objective choice seems obvious, really makes you question not only your own ability to make sacrifices, but how powerful an emotional connection can be; how, as the film constantly seeks to show, love "transcends time and space". This is a movie that, despite all its complexity (and it does get very complex), manages to remain intimately emotional on a very humanly understandable level. That's part of what makes this film such a masterpiece - the ability to achieve that kind of balance is not just a feat, it's next to impossible. Yet Nolan has, in my view, achieved that nicely.
However, even that wouldn't a masterpiece make, and the film has more to offer. It goes back to the feeling of awe that I kept mentioning earlier. Due to the successful connection established between complexity and emotion, Nolan has managed - with a mix of visual effects, a well-connected plot, and pure directing magic - to capture the wonder of not just space travel, but cross-dimensional travel (small spoiler) and sink it into the audience. I'm finding it difficult putting it into words, not to mention without revealing more of the plot. You will probably leave the dark cinema hall feeling slightly confused, filled with a ton of questions, but mostly feeling very, very small. Interstellar presents the enomorosity of the universe, time, and everything else unlike anything else I've seen before.
I did mention being slightly confused, and that's the main striking flaw of the movie. The science behind the film is difficult to explain in a simple manner, and I don't think Nolan has completely achieved that. The dialogue style of slurred words and low volumes that he seems to prefer (Inception being another victim) certainly doesn't help matters, and it can be sometimes a chore to keep up. This is especially so with the slow burn in the first half (which is another problem), where nothing extremely substantial seems to happen - this isn't exactly a movie with an obvious villain, after all, unless you count Mother Nature. Pull through, however, and it does reward you in spades at the end.
I called Inception the best movie of all time because it simply was the perfect example of accessible art: smart, yet very human, very entertaining, and at the same time managing to do almost everything well. Interstellar isn't that. It does not have that kind of perfect balance. However, it reaches for the stars in a quest for the intellectual, and largely succeeds, in a more personal way than I thought possible. It is flawed, but where it excels, it excels brilliantly, and more crucially, it has surpassed being a form of entertainment, and became more of an experience.
Watch it. You may really like it, you may not, but there are some things in life that are too unique experiences to be missed. Interstellar is most definitely one of them.
Suburban KID rating: 9/10
Images retrieved from:
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/146/0/b/interstellar_by_annaeus-d7jtk2d.jpg
http://www.ejempla.com/images/6e82ae894577568c7059f62d49e6463f86b34508_1600.jpg
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