Every once in a while a movie comes along that makes you want to spend just a little more time in the movie hall, even when the said movie clocks in at a whopping 169 minutes. While this might not be Christopher Nolan’s best film to date, but with Interstellar, Nolan continues to push the envelope so frighteningly hard, that you cannot but give the man a standing ovation.
Interstellar opens with the widower Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), who sets out on an inter-galactic journey, leaving behind his ten-year-old genius daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy) and older son Tom (Timothy Chalamet) with his father-in-law (John Lithgow), on post-apocalyptic earth where dust storms eat into people’s lungs till they die of suffocation. Cooper, a test pilot-turned-farmer, is inducted into NASA’s secret mission to find a home for the human species in a far-away galaxy. The team supervised by Professor Russel Brand (Michael Caine) on earth, includes his daughter Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway), Doyle (Wes Bentley), Romilly (David Gyasi) and a “giant sarcastic robot” TARS (voiced by the stellar Bill Irwin).
Lovers of science fiction are not going to be disappointed. A film based on Einstein’s theory of relativity, Nolan bends, compresses, elongates and manipulates concepts of time and gravity to process and present basic human emotions and motivations. Most of us won’t wrap our brains around all of it, because the scale of his attempt is just too big to get around in a single sitting. But don’t stop trying. This is a movie you need to experience with your brain on full-alert.
But it’s not the mind-numbingly complex ideas you need to worry about. It’s how Nolan manages to give science an emotional gravitas; most of you are going to be choked up half-way through the movie. There’s a scene where Cooper’s leaving home to head for the space station after a heart-wrenching dialogue with his daughter, that tears you apart like nothing ever will. These are the moments that reconcile science fiction to humanity, and it’s beyond genius that Nolan has pulled it off with such ease.
Apart from Nolan’s ace direction, Interstellar’s success rests on Mathew McConaughey’s able shoulders. He proves once again why he’s one of the best actors in mainstream Hollywood today. Whether he’s falling through space or attending a parent-teacher meeting, the man makes you want to root for him till the very end.
There’s a lot to be said of the visuals as well. Nolan wants you to watch it on the biggest screen you can find and you’ll find out why. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, of Let the Right One In (probably one of the most evocative vampire love stories) and Her, has composed some awe-inducing frames, which are well worth the extra moolah you shelled out to watch the film in true IMAX. Blackholes, wormholes, new galaxies, parallel dimensions, all of these come alive in the most realistic way possible. And it does get real, because when Nolan roped in astrophysicist Kip Thorne to work on the 3D mapping of the outer space visuals, he wasn’t kidding around. These guys have nailed it and it’s going to be extremely difficult to top their efforts.
The casting is superb as in all Nolan films. Anne Hathway plays the scientist with the golden heart. Jessica Chastain as Cooper’s grown-up daughter shines. Matt Damon makes an appearance in the second half of the film and he supplies all the moral questions for the film. Menacingly disquieting yet fragile, Damon’s character is all it takes to question our motives in life. Casey Affleck as the grown-up Tom also turns in an impressive performance.
Interstellar is 2014’s best blockbuster fand brings together the infinite with the intimate; the desolation with the urgency of human touch; the love for adventure with the search for home; and most importantly, the scientific with the spiritual.
Verdict: After 2001: A Space Odyssey, here comes an epic adventure through space and time, that you are never going to forget. Watch it on IMAX for the full experience.