Back at this year’s San Diego Comic Con, Christopher
Nolan and Matthew McConaughey gave a press conference that was a masterclass in
promoting your film, but telling you nothing about it. That’s the best way to
go and see Nolan’s latest multi-million dollar epic; the less you know, the
more you’ll enjoy it.
The plot starts off simple enough. In the near future,
earth is dying, and food sources are dwindling. Ex-astronaut Cooper
(McConaughey) is sent on a mission to save mankind; to search an unexplored
galaxy for a planet where the human race can live on. Not only is Cooper
concerned with saving our species, he also wants to return home so he can see
his family again. That’s all straightforward; then Christopher and Jonathan
Nolan (who both wrote the script) throw all sorts of smart, original,
occasionally genuinely bonkers scenes at you.
If you search the online reviews for Interstellar, a number of them suggest that Nolan has stolen from
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
While some of the space exploration is definitely influenced by Kubrick’s
masterpiece, Interstellar has a
beating heart underneath the push the envelope visuals. In many ways, Nolan’s
latest project is a throwback to the eighties, films such as E.T., The Goonies, Raiders of the
Lost Ark, where the world and the skies above were to be explored: outside
your front door, there’s an adventure waiting. Considering Nolan gave us the
downbeat, real-world superhero Dark
Knight trilogy, Interstellar feels
like it came from a more innocent, less complicated time. In Interstellar’s world, you either grow up
to be a farmer or the gifted and talented become scientists. Children are
taught that the moon landings never happened, just an elaborate hoax to
bankrupt the Russians. NASA has been shut down for decades; planet earth has
neither the time nor the money to spend on space missions. No one looks up at
the skies any more, instead they shuffle round, surviving instead of living. McConaughey’s
Cooper is your traditional hero, the same mould as Raiders’ Indiana Jones, or The
Goonies’ Mikey. Cooper is a Texan rebel, refusing to be told what to do or
have decisions made for him; he was never meant to live an ordinary life,
working nine-to-five, only seeing the wonders of the world and beyond it on a TV
screen.
As little as four years ago, Matthew McConaughey was the
Go-To-Guy for Hollywood’s next lightweight, mediocre film. Drawing a line under
his CV and taking lead roles in risky indie flicks such as Killer Joe, The Paperboy,
and, more recently, The Dallas Buyers
Club, McConaughey is suddenly one of the most talented and surprising
actors working today. Once again, McConaughey is on first-rate form here as
Cooper. Despite all the science and theories that feature throughout Interstellar, what stands out is its
theme of family, how strong the bond is between two people who love and care
for each other. McConaughey never squanders this; Cooper might be saving life
on earth, but his priority is getting back to his children. It’s not spoiling
anything to say that the mission does not go according to plan, and a scene
where Cooper is forced to watch the consequences play out in front of him is
heart-breaking to sit through. McConaughey has this rare talent of being able to
draw you in with a flawlessly judged, absorbing performance, without chewing
the scenery or overacting.
As you would expect with a Nolan film, all of the
performances are strong, but most deserving of a mention is Jessica Chastain,
who plays Cooper’s ten-year-old daughter, Murphy. McConaughey and Chastain’s
scenes together are what Interstellar
is all about. Murphy is her father’s daughter; unlike her peers, she is
obsessed with finding out what our world and the stars have to offer. Chastain
is McConaughey’s partner in crime, but she also gives him the dressing down he
needs when he goes too far, putting himself in danger. The scene when Cooper tries
saying goodbye to his daughter, Murphy refusing to speak to him, pretending he
never existed, will have plenty of people welling up at the cinema.
Interstellar
needs to be watched on the biggest screen you can find (I saw it on IMAX and it
was borderline overwhelming!). Nolan swaps his long-time cinematographer Wally
Pfister for Hoyte Van Hoytema (Let The
Right One In, Her), Hoytema managing
to get the balance just right with visuals that are desolate, but also give a
sense of grandeur. Planets made up of skyscraper-sized waves, or frozen clouds,
will wow audiences who pine for the summer blockbuster season.
Nolan’s first attempt at science fiction proper just
misses the mark of being flawless. Whereas Inception’s
dream within a dream rules were carefully and subtly explained, occasionally
funny or thrilling to watch, Interstellar
bombards you with Stephen Hawking levels of physics and expects you to keep up.
Once or twice, I was wishing I had a rewind button so I could go over an
explanation one more time. The last hour of the film changes gear and delves
into theories such as there being not three, not four, but five dimensions, as well as gravity being a force that can time
travel. Personally, I thought the third act was both clever and unpredictable,
but I can understand why someone would find it irritating and have no idea what’s
going on.
Thankfully, you can overlook the science lesson
exposition as it’s all sandwiched between an unashamedly human and touching narrative
that will stun die hard Nolan fans. Wormholes, black holes, and the vastness of
space all look eerily beautiful (it’s not a rip-off of 2001, it’s 2001 after nearly
fifty years of cinematic advances), but Nolan also shows us how family, loving
someone and treasuring your memories, can be just as special. For me, my favourite
science fiction films are Stanley Kubrick’s 2001:
A Space Odyssey, Ridley Scott’s Blade
Runner, and Duncan Jones’s Moon. I’m
adding Interstellar to that list.
5 out of 5
Matt
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