Movie Review - Interstellar: a flawed but mighty beast

 

When a director steps up to a new film after a string of highly acclaimed and financially successful films, and they quite obviously are attempting to make a significant piece of work, you can't fault their ambition; unfortunately, previous success can mean that critics and audiences alike approach the latest film by this director with tremendous, arguably unmatchable expectations.  This is the problem that 'Interstellar' has straight-off; Director Christopher Nolan has been hailed by some as the greatest of his generation, comparisons made to greats such as Hitchcock, Kubrick and Spielberg.  I'll be upfront: 'Interstellar' is not the earth-shattering, definitive cinematic master-piece that many were expecting.  It is, in fact, an effective, realistic and engaging science fiction film, held together by Nolan's film-making talents (and commitment to practical effects wherever possible) and by another great performance by Matthew McConaughey.  It is flawed in a number of respects - there is a touch of self-indulgence that arguably could have been trimmed from it, and the script is -on several occasions - something of an Achilles heel.  These hold the film back from the greatness that many expected from it, but do not spoil it completely.

The film is set in the not-too-distant future, and casts McConaughey's Cooper, a former NASA test-pilot and Engineer now turned Maize farmer.  We're told that, following a war and as a result of the spread of 'blight', the only plant that can now be farmed is this one.  We're told that, due to those that survived the war getting tired of people killing each other, funding was cut for apparently 'frivolous' work such as the NASA Space Programme, and most technology and gadgets we take for granted now are perceived as a similarly unnecessary waste that marks the excess of the 20th Century.  You'll note I said 'told', because at this stage the film does what many directors don't like doing - the usual maxim is 'show, don't tell', and I can imagine there are some who would be disappointed not to see exactly what the devastating effects of this war were, and how the survivors turned things round to an extent.  I guess it would have made for some pretty spectacular (if depressing) visuals to have seen some of that depicted, but this would have taken money away from realising the focus of the story - the journey across space.

Matthew McConaughey anchors the film with another great performance.

Following a mysterious message Cooper and his daughter Murphy (Mackenzie Foy) find the location of a secret NASA facility, and discover that there are still people looking to the stars for humanity's salvation; as environmental decline and the eventual dying out of all vegetation is apparently inevitable, the discovery of a Wormhole (a point at which two separate places in Space, incomprehensible distances apart, are effectively 'joined together') facilitates the search for a planet suitable for sustaining human life.  Cooper is asked by lead scientist (another talismanic turn for Nolan from Michael Caine) to pilot the ship with a team of scientists through the Wormhole and find a new home for the Human race.

This film has lofty ambitions, in terms of how it wants to present a scientifically grounded and visually realistic portrayal of space travel through Wormholes - in that regard it succeeds, quite emphatically.  Nolan's preference for practical effects means that what you see on screen in terms of space-faring vessels, technology and equipment (including two minimal looking yet surprisingly well-designed robots) look like the real deal, especially in some memorable and impressively shot flying scenes.  It has to be said that there wasn't anything here that felt particularly ground-breaking or going in to previously uncharted visual territory; in some respects last years 'Gravity' beat this film to the punch in presenting a detailed and real-feeling trip in space.  Having said that, the robots do steal the show a little - despite their basic and misleadingly blocky design, they have some memorable moments showing they are in fact surprisingly mobile and utilitarian.

Space travel looks especially good in IMAX..

As well as high aspirations in realism and scientific accuracy, the film has similar goals with regards to what it would like to say about human spirit and endeavour; I would say in this regard it is not quite as successful.  This is partly due to a script that doesn't always convince when it isn't stating scientific fact and theory.  To start with, characters tend to speak in grandiose aphorisms ("we are meant to be explorers, pioneers...") which don't always sound natural.  There's also one particular monologue about how love apparently 'connects' people, but it doesn't entirely work due to the context of rational scientific theorising which is the significant focus of the rest of the script.  This is slightly unfortunate as this concept is a significant part of the plot, and in the second half of the film it's a great part of Cooper's motivation; the decision to leave his children weighs heavily on him, in no small part due to his daughter's anger and upset at him leaving them.  If the script doesn't quite sell this aspect as effectively as it should, it is redeemed by the acting, especially McConaughey; one scene conveys this quite emphatically as Cooper views video years-worth of messages from his children and sees them grow up before his eyes.  His simultaneous joy and heartbreak is portrayed so movingly and memorably by McConaughey.  A number of critics have argued that Nolan can't pull off the emotional aspects of this film as well as the colder, logical and scientific ones - even going so far as to say that his other films struggle in a similar way.  I don't think that is entirely true, but in this film it is fair to say this aspect doesn't always work as well.

Another thing that goes against the film slightly is in the way that, during the final act, the film relies on a couple of characters making decisions and behaving in ways that seem to fly against the script's earlier reliance on logic and science.  In one case there is a justification from a line of dialogue earlier in the film, but beyond that it seems this decisions were added to the plot simply to create tension and a sense of 'threat' that the film doesn't necessarily require.  Add to that a finale which raises a few questions, and could possibly have been truncated to better effect, it gives this film a slightly wobbly ending when Nolan's previous films have touched-down quite confidently.

However, thanks to the impressively realised visuals and great acting, especially from McConaughey, this doesn't spoil the film completely.  It just means that this isn't the ground-breaking classic a lot of people were hoping for - it is just a solid, entertaining and at times thought-provoking film.  In terms of Nolan's overall cannon of work I still believe that Inception is his best film - but you could say that this film is part of a series of more personal ones, following on from The Prestige (with its themes of rivalry and brotherhood), and Inception (which had a moving strand about reconciliation, forgiveness and father-son relationships).  It is clear that in this Nolan is reflecting on his own relationship and responsibilities as a father to his own daughter - he could well have dedicated it to her.  Despite the epic subject matter and science that form the basis of this film, it still has a human and relatable core, clearly drawn from Nolan himself, and portrayed so effectively onscreen by McConaughey's performance.