Interstellar Review

Is space an exciting locale to stage a movie? In the motion picture Interstellar directed by Christopher Nolan that is certainly the case as the story unfolds beautifully and makes space one of its characters. The story is set in the future where the world is on the brink of starvation, gravity isn’t perfect, and basically the world is in its worst case scenario as ex-astronaut Cooper played by Matthew McConaughey lives his life now as a farmer and parent of two children, Murph his rough around the edges daughter and his son Tom who has been sentenced to a life of farming by the school district. Cooper doesn’t feel satisfied with his place in the world; this sentiment is voiced by his father who states Cooper was born forty years too late or too early. Cooper is a man who seeks adventure, a yearning for something more than the tedious life he leads. This point is demonstrated well as early in the film on the way to a parent teacher meeting he chases after a drone in his truck with a flat tire. At any rate, Cooper finds himself at odds with the school over his son's future and Murph’s behavior. A teacher tells Cooper Murph got in a fight because she refused to believe the Apollo Moon landing was a facade, which catches Cooper much to his dismay. Here Nolan shows at this stage show just how much Cooper is a man out of time.

      As the story continues Cooper finds himself recruited into a space mission to save the planet. Dr. Brand who recruits Cooper tells him there are two plans; plan a would entail Cooper and a team of astronauts going into space and jumping through a wormhole to find a suitable planet for the human race to move on to in order to save the human race from extinction, and plan b would entail the human race on Earth being abandoned and a new colony being set up with genetic engineering in space. Dr. Brand tells him to plan a would be much more fun. He also promises Cooper that if he accepts this mission by the time he returns he will have solved the problem of gravity. Cooper realizes he has to do this and takes it upon himself to lead this mission. However, Cooper has to deal with saying goodbye to his family. Cooper’s goodbye to his daughter Murph is a heartbreaking one as he reveals to Murph that time won’t pass the same for him in space as it does for her on Earth; he indicates that by the time he gets back he could be the same age as her. Nolan did a good job conveying how hard it was for Cooper to leave home not knowing if he would ever see his family again. I believe that Nolan made a smart decision to spend so much time setting up the story on Earth before launching into space.

       The story does eventually launch into space though and the adventure through the wormhole is a terrific one. The story takes its time to walk us through the scientific logistics of what Cooper and his team are trying to accomplish, some of the logistics which may be a bit much for the general audience to understand. The team faces a huge obstacle,time, which makes for a terrifying antagonist in the story. The more time they waste in space the more years pass by on Earth versus a much shorter period of time for them in space. As the team conducts their mission they are able to send messages back home. It makes for a terrific element in developing the characters. The story has a lot of emotional depth as it explores Cooper’s connection to his family and his struggle working with Brand’s daughter, played by Anne Hathaway. The visual style of this movie is great; the style is a great credit to Nolan who is a master at constructing these beautiful worlds in his films. In this case, he did a great job of exploring the world of space in the film.

     As the story moves on we get to see how characters are affected by this mission both in space and on Earth. The tension and excitement build up as the team faces a devastating blow losing a teammate and losing years on Earth in the process. When Cooper and Brand finally manage to return to Romilly they now find him a much older man going to show that time is a huge enemy for Cooper and his team. I’m not a huge fan of how quick this escalated however as I feel they could have used to time to really deliver the impact with this. The team’s quest continues at any rate, though. The team is able to find a planet but find themselves with an unexpected adversary played excellently by Matt Damon. Damon plays Dr. Mann who betrays Cooper and the rest out of his sense of twisted loyalty to the continuation of the human race. This exciting turning point in the movie, is played off well, resulting in another catastrophic death. By this time in the movie the timeline on Earth has advanced to that of an adult Murph and Tom. A time in which Murph has been working with Dr. Brand who dies and dramatically reveals that plan a was never an option.

     This shows just how powerfully the character arcs are utilized in this film and heightens matters. The story really plays with the character dynamics of characters light years away from each other. The story eventually results in the separation of Cooper and Brand, leaving Cooper to survive on his own. This leads the story into the puzzling ending in which Cooper has a multi-dimensional experience with the past. He initially believes he has encountered the beings who led him on the mission but discovers they themselves sent themselves on the mission to save humans. It's a bit confusing and the ending isn’t great as it could have been simplified and not told so convoluted. However, the ending is still engaging intellectually and emotionally as Cooper views his tragic goodbye to Murphy back on Earth revealing how foreshadowing was used back in that original scene. The ending finds Cooper back in human civilization in a time where Murph is an old woman on her deathbed who helped save the human race. The ending suggests humans have evolved to the point of using multiple dimensions. This film has many pros with great characters, emotional depth, and a sense of style. The film does have a few cons though including its characters.

      While Cooper is a standout the rest of his team isn’t that interesting. Brand is the best-developed character on the team next to Cooper but she isn’t a great character to me, just good. The rest are fine but weren’t really given enough material for me to feel like they were really something special. I’m not a huge fan of how Dr. Brand was treated like a villain for lying to humanity, and his lie did seem to come a little bit left field.The movie does run a bit long, it feels like a good half hour could have been cut out to tighten it up. The ending as I stated is a bit convoluted and isn’t the best in my mind. However, even with those flaws, this is a great film experience delivered from the mastermind, Christopher Nolan. Overall my opinion is this is a great movie which I would assign a score of 8.5/10.