Rating of
3/4
Love in the 5th Dimension
Chris Kavan - wrote on 11/10/14
Christopher Nolan has created the most technical, innovative (and let's be honest) most expensive love letter in cinema. According to sources, the fake title to throw off the press and such while filming Interstellar was "Flora's Letter" - Flora is the daughter of Nolan and with all the exploration, physics, science and cautionary future message - what Interstellar amounts to is a father's unconditional love for his daughter across time and space.
I love the opening - we are treated to some voice-overs reminiscent of Ken Burns' Dust Bowl documentary as we are regaled with stories about dealing with the always-prevalent dust and the feeling of being hungry. We are then thrust into the lives of a seemingly normal family - father Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a one-time NASA pilot is now, like so many other people on Earth, a farmer. Despite being an engineer and learned man - he is raising lots of corn, the only viable crop (we learn the last Okra harvest is happening) left to raise. The Earth is becoming a barren wasteland. A wasting disease has ruined nearly all the crops and is pumping excess Nitrogen into the atmosphere - while eliminated Oxygen. He live son the farm with his father Donald (John Lithgow), his son, Tom (Timothée Chalamet) - who is a farmer through and through - and daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy), a whipsmart young girl.
Things are presented in an interesting way - college is now reserved for the best of the best. The Apollo Moon landing is now taught as being "fake" - a ploy to bankrupt the Russians. MRIs no longer exist - and the "caregiver" society has stagnated as there is little technological or scientific advancement as the world tries to feed itself and is no longer interested in things like video games, cell phones or other gadgets we are so bent on using these days. Even the New York Yankees are now little more than a minor league draw. These touches really bring this quite-possible future into perspective and Nolan does an excellent job of setting up this dustbowl vision.
But soon enough, Cooper is drawn to a set of mysterious coordinates given to him by a "ghost" who Murph says pushes books off her shelf - she's sure it's trying to tell her something. This trip leads to NASA - long out of the public eye, but still operating in secret. It turns out for the past 50 years they have been working on a plan to save humanity. It seems a wormhold appeared just outside of Saturn and, after sending in probes and ten brave explorers, they are now ready to launch one last mission to find out if any of the planets on the other side can sustain human life. Utilizing some technological terms, it seems that the beings responsible for putting the wormhole there are somehow able to manipulate gravity in a way to transcend time. Figuring out how they manage to do this is the key to taking the remaining population of Earth to these brave new worlds (Plan A). Leading the way is Professor Brand (Michael Caine) who has been working on this problem pretty much his whole life. But if Plan A fails, there is Plan B - a whole clutch of fertilized human eggs ready to be born and start colonizing a new planet.
Cooper then has to make the toughest decision of his life - leave behind his family to save the world. Of course, it's not much of a choice - and even though Murph feels betrayed, he leaves it all behind. Joining him on the mission is Brand's daughter (Anne Hathaway), along with Doyle (Wes Bentley) and Romilly (David Gyasi). They are also joined by a pair of robotic helpers TARS (voiced by Bill Irwin) and CASE (voiced by John Stewart). It will take two years to reach the wormhole - but that's just the start of the mission. Once on the other side, the three planets identified as the most promising will have to be explored - but they are circling a blackhole - and suddenly relativity comes into play as touching down means an hour spent on the planet means seven years pass back on Earth - needless to say complications mean that Murph turns into Jessica Chastain while Tom becomes Casey Affleck. And the mission doesn't get any easier from there - needless to say there are surprising revelations and more setbacks leading to one final push and a heady conclusion with shades of 2001 thrown in.
What Interstellar gets right is first off the science. This is a pretty technical film that throws out topics one doesn't normally see - even in sci-fi films. It tops Gravity in this department for sure. Yet even with this kind of knowledge thrown around - I never felt it bogged things down or was too overwhelming. I can see some audience members being turned off by this - but sometimes it's good to use your brain, even at the movies. Two - the characters are great. McConaughey shines as the everyman - even though he's supposed to be a smart guy, he seems down-to-Earth - just like the best characters he plays. Lithgow is excellent as his father, and Foy (who I remember mostly from The Conjuring) holds her own emotionally as the young Murph. Caine lends his usual gravatis (and as a frequent collaborator with Nolan, is still a welcome addition). Some have complained that Hathaway's characters is given over to typical "female" emotions to drive her character, but I didn't think it was that bad. Chastain is good as the older Murph, but I don't feel she was given enough screen time myself. And poor Affleck - he was given even less and pretty much forgotten by his own father by the end of the movie (one reason I have to knock it down a peg).
There are faults here from making this a truly exceptional film. While Hans Zimmer's score is good (often employing an almost ticking-clock motif - to go along with how important time is in the film) - the fact is it can become quite intrusive. My dad complained he couldn't hear some of the dialogue because of the music at times. While I don't think the ending was a complete bust, it was certainly - well, not quite a cop out, but just a bit strange. It's not going to be to everyone's taste, and it didn't ruin things, but it felt a bit awkward to me. The other issue is the running time - it felt like a long movie - and the bad part is I really can't think of what would have fixed it. That being said, the visual effects are off the charts - and if you have a chance to see this in IMAX, take the plunge - it will be worth it.
Nolan's love letter may not be his best film - nor even the best film of 2014, but it has impact. Not quite as big a punch as I was expecting, but certainly worth sinking your teeth into.
