Interstellar is vague in every way that a film can be vague. The year is difficult to pinpoint. It feels like sometime in the indeterminate near future, say 2050, but the production design is more inspired by John Steinbeck novels set in the 1930s. This is the heartland of America, possibly a state like Oklahoma. We see them watching the Yankees as a barnstorming team so maybe they’re in New York. We really don‘t know. The very existence of the human race is endangered by dust clouds, described as blight, that are gradually eliminating the number of crops that are viable on Earth. We’re to assume the whole world is at risk, but only the U.S. is addressed or even mentioned. Farms are collapsing. In a prologue, elderly people reminisce about the farming era in which they lived. Most of the interviewees are actually non actors from Ken Burns’ 2012 documentary The Dust Bowl repurposed here to represent a different ecological disaster.
However one of those subjects is an actual actress – Ellen Burstyn – who plays Murphy Cooper as an old woman. Flashback to the proper start of our adventure. Murph is the highly regarded 10 year old daughter of Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey). She is initially played by Mackenzie Foy and later Jessica Chastain. This father-daughter connection is the heart of Interstellar. However the tenderness between father and daughter rings hollow. They are given little to do, save for hunting down an errant drone spy plane together. Their relationship is an emotional void and the drama fails to engage at this level. Cooper’s eagerness to leave his family and blast off into the stratosphere doesn’t help. Father Cooper also lives with his seemingly disregarded 15-year-old son Tom (Timothée Chalamet). The script barely acknowledges the boy. Rounding out this foursome is his father-in-law Donald (John Lithgow). Murph communicates with a ghost in her bedroom which ultimately leads her father to a secret NASA base location. There he meets a team of explorers that hypothesizes the solution to the Earth’s problems lies somewhere beyond this galaxy.
Christopher Nolan is a storyteller and he fashions a chronicle with a great deal of attention. There is a lot of science tossed around in the explanation of space travel. I won’t bore you with the particulars but it involves Einstein, relativity and the space-time continuum. I’m not a scientist, but most of it sounded pretty logical to me so I accepted it at face value. Christopher Nolan fills the world with little details that make watching more fun. TARS is a robot helper on the mission. He looks like a monolith that separates into rectangular limbs when he walks and talks. He is refreshingly outdated in style but uncomfortably human when he enunciates. Several times I couldn’t figure out who was speaking, only to realize, it was TARS the robot. He has a sarcastic personality brought to life by actor Bill Irwin. “I have a cue light I can use to show you when I’m joking, if you like.”
Interstellar is filled with fascinating setpieces: (1) a tidal wave on a water planet that rises up out of nothing like a wall, (2) the arrival of a guest with depressing news, (3) an altercation on the frozen tundra of another planet, (4) a docking maneuver that is a nail bitter. But the whole isn’t equal to the sum of these parts. Interstellar is certainly a wonder to behold. Nolan gets the majesty of the universe in all its wide expansive grandeur. The director was clearly inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey. Richard Strauss’ symphonic poem “Also Sprach Zarathustra” was utilized to legendary effect in that picture. Hans Zimmer attempts to outdo the epicness of that piece. The score is bombastic, almost assaultive. In space no one can hear you scream. That’s because Hans Zimmer’s score will drown you out. Long-time collaborator Wally Pfister was busy directing Transcendence, so Nolan tapped Hoyt Van Hoytema to shoot this saga. The cinematography is full of breathtaking images as they reinforce a lofty tale of epic proportions. If you can feast on the visuals, then perhaps that will be enough to hold you. But any movie that MUST be seen on a big screen to be enjoyed, falls short at telling an engaging story.
Interstellar is an extremely long 3 hour movie. For roughly half the drama, the ideas feel organic as they effortlessly support a real respect for the wonder of the cosmos. But by the 2nd half, something happens. The ideas become more ponderous, the tone more solemn. Physics gives way to mysticism. An initial set up that was driven by the joy of space travel devolves into a superficial meditation on love. Yet for all its efforts to be tear-jerking, I felt nothing. It’s not a bad film, but it is Christopher Nolan’s least captivating picture. It doesn’t seem informed by the director’s vision. It’s more like the 2nd greatest work that M. Night Shyamalan never directed.
11-04-14
Fast Film Reviews 
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