Above: Anne Hathaway co-stars in Mr. Nolan's latest philosophical blockbuster
“What?” That one, simple word floated through my mind
as soon as the last credits rolled for Christopher Nolan’s new space saga,
“Interstellar.” True, I had a few
concrete thoughts about the movie. I
knew I didn’t love it as passionately as my favorite Nolan pictures (“The Dark
Knight Rises” and “Inception,” thank you very much); and I knew that I was
intrigued by the film’s bombastic marriage of human hope and grimy special
effects.
But
mostly, I was just baffled. What had I
just watched? What was this strange
mixture of science and sentimentality from one of my most beloved role models? Thus, with the caveat of uncertainty, I will
try to review “Interstellar.” But be
warned—I can’t yet claim to fully understand the movie. In fact, already I’m feeling the urge to
revisit it, in order to better figure out how I feel about it.
From
the beginning, it’s clear that this is a film a few dusty meters outside Mr.
Nolan’s wheelhouse. Usually, he throws
us into his poetically-charged visions without the nicety of opening credits; here,
the word “Interstellar” is printed neatly in Times New Roman over the movie’s
opening shot—an image of a toy space ship, sitting on a dirty book shelf.
The
toy belongs to Cooper (Matthew McConaghey), a reluctant farmer living sometime
in the future. It’s not a happy era—the
world is hemorrhaging food and supplies, leaving the remaining humans spend
their days harvesting corn (a lucky few get to go to college). Hence Cooper’s plight—he once worked for
NASA, but now has nothing left to do but prime the grubby, red-painted machines
that keep his family’s farm running.
Needless
to say, that’s not the whole movie.
Never one to let too much screen time pass without the crash of action,
Mr. Nolan sends Cooper and his daughter Murph (MacKenzie Foy) on a careening
chase through the corn fields, then follows them as they make a startling
discovery—that in secret, NASA is looking for life-friendly planets beyond
Earth. And so, soon (perhaps too soon in
the story) Cooper leaves his family and blasts into space, from a rocket to a
space station to a wormhole, one that leads him and his astronaut compatriot
Brand (Anne Hathaway) to an entirely different galaxy.
It’s a
rough journey. Mr. Nolan once spoke of
how he likes to disregard science and make up his own reality rules for his movies. But on “Interstellar,” he worked with
scientist Kip Thorne, which might explain the often incoherent banter about
gravity, time, and mechanics exchanged between Cooper and Brand. Mr. Nolan was fine concocting self-contained,
fictional parameters for dream sharing in “Inception.” But in “Interstellar,” his attempts to
interweave real math and physics into an elegant spectacle feels ever so off
the mark.
Which
isn’t to say that “Interstellar” is a dry, text book-like work of art. Au contraire—if anything, the movie is too
emotional. The scene where Cooper leaves
Murph is interesting (“Don’t let me leave like this,” he says to his angry
daughter, sounding almost angry himself).
But did there have to be so many scenes of characters sobbing loudly
over the dismal fate of Earth? Maybe,
but I found the film’s deluge of tears depressing nonetheless.
And
yet…there’s something about “Interstellar.”
For one thing, there’s Hans Zimmer’s score, with its blasting, tinkling
organ that sounds like the engine of some loudly graceful, yet to be invented piece
of machinery. And then there’s a
strange, satisfyingly complicated sequence featuring a cameo from a certain
square-jawed, soulfully sincere American actor.
I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t heard he’s in the movie, but I
will say this—in his brief scenes, he packs in enough compassion and frailty
for an army of vivid characters.
The
scene in question takes place on an ice planet, one thick with steep slopes and
crusty clouds. It’s a visually wondrous
world, and visuals are among the greatest achievements of “Interstellar.” The film’s spaceships have a nicely rough
texture (yes, Mr. Nolan used real models), though it’s ultimately the
non-physical that steals the show. The
climax, in which Cooper drifts through a celestial, book-filled labyrinth,
turns your sense of direction in circles and sideways, leaving you floating and
dizzy, as if you’ve been elevated from your seat and into the movie’s cosmic
layers.
In
more ways than one, that beautifully weird sequence sums up what “Interstellar”
is about. Cooper, looping through a
world he could have never imagined, is seeing things that no other human has
glimpsed, fulfilling his promise to become a great explorer. Which is what Mr. Nolan’s film is really
about—exploration. The mission to save
Earth and humanity may be what drives Cooper and company, but the film’s final
scene (in which a lone astronaut makes camp on a deserted alien world) suggests
that the search, the quest, is meaningful in itself.
You
should see “Interstellar” for that (and many other) otherworldly, thought-provoking
moments. But I don’t think the film’s
going to inspire conversations about space and time, or even its characters
(who aren’t quite as complex as Mr. Nolan tries to make them). Instead, I think we’ll all end up discussing
the movie itself—its gloominess, its optimism, its obsession with the color
white (Cooper and friends’ spacesuits match that ice planet), and its
unsettling, yet somehow sweet conclusion.
In
other words, you should heed the words of another science fiction opus: the
human adventure is just beginning.
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