Interstellar (2014)

Director: Christopher Nolan
Story: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine
Music: Hans Zimmer
Time: 169 minutes
Bottom-line: Jaw-dropping, enthralling... Nolan’s imagination has no bounds

OK, I’ll be frank – I have been planning to watch this film since June. Finally, after a couple of hectic weeks I had the chance to view the latest Nolan film: the science fiction drama, Interstellar. Now, this film is unlike anything Nolan has ever done before, and though it may not be his best, it is arguably his grandest film till date. The film stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain in the lead roles, with Michael Caine and Mackenzie Foy in the supporting roles.

Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here. In a futuristic world, crop blight becomes responsible for the majority of the population to turn to agriculture for a living. One such farmer and ex-NASA pilot, Cooper (McConauhey), lives with his father-in-law, teenage son and 10-year old daughter, Murphy (Foy). Murphy is very much interested in science, but still believes that a ghost in her room is trying to communicate with her. Cooper figures out that the “ghost” is an unknown source sending coded messages, which lead to a secret NASA installation, led by Dr. Brand (Caine). He tells Cooper that an alien intelligence has created a wormhole near Saturn, perhaps offering humanity a chance to survive on another planet. Cooper is requested to fly a crew to search for potentially habitable worlds. Interstellar is about the adventures experienced by the crew in their journey, and whether or not they are able to return safely, back to Earth.

McConaughey as Cooper

Watching a Nolan film usually has three steps: one, start watching, hoping for all sorts of fantastic stuff. Two, after enjoying most of the film, slowly start scratching your head because things get really confusing. Three, come home, think about the film, read some analysis, and more often than not, plan to watch it again. Then why the hell are his films so good? Because he does not just put some nonsense together to rattle your brain; once you understand it properly, the story actually makes a lot of sense.

Hathaway as Amelia Brand

The story starts out slowly, mainly highlighting the father-daughter relationship between Cooper and Murphy. From the entry of Caine’s character, the science part begins. Basically his idea is, “It is not about saving the planet; it is about leaving it. Brand is working on some (sophisticated, of course) gravity equation, which, on solving, can give a way to take most of the humans on earth to the other planet, if found habitable. Once the crew is launched into space, the story becomes similar to that of Gravity. So why is Interstellar different? Because Nolan introduces some sentiment into the storyline.

This film has more content about love and emotions than any other Nolan film. Why? That you will know towards the end. The interesting thing, however, is that there is no non-linear narrative structure (yes, that’s true!). Now why would Nolan do that? That’s because he has gone to the next level of “playing with time”. You must realise that he has taken the viewers to a place where the word “time” has no meaning! I mean, in space, especially when it comes to black holes and such, a whole set of associated terms like relativity, time dilation etc come into picture. In fact, in one planet the crew visits, every hour spent there is equivalent to twenty three Earth years, because of the severe gravitational time dilation. So, in case you haven’t watched the film yet, just browse through some space and time related articles and books to have a better understanding of the film. The ending gets really confusing, so don’t worry about it too much. With time you will start to make sense out of it.

Chastain as (the adult) Murphy

One drawback of the film, I felt, is that it is way too scientific. The works of physicist Kip Thorne was the inspiration for the film. I am not in a position to say if it is scientifically accurate or not (not that I care) but though it is understandable that Nolan wanted to make the film as accurate as possible, I didn’t find any need for so much “geek talk”. The dialogues should have been written in a better way. There is no ambiguity in the climax (I guess that’s a disappointment to many) but a clear indication of a sequel, in my view. The visual effects are dazzling... and mind you, this film is in 2D! The wormhole, the other planets and in fact everything is so beautifully created and superbly shot.

McConaughey leads from the front, with a commendable performance. Anne Hathaway, who plays another astronaut, Amelia Brand, has done well too. But the better performance was given by Jessica Chastain, who plays the adult Murphy. And of course, not to forget Mackenzie Foy, whose role as the 10-year-old Murphy was interesting to watch. Matt Damon also has a cameo role in the film. The film’s score is brilliant – Hans Zimmer has put together some great pieces of music. His work was apparently quite secretive, because he had announced that the music that you hear in the trailers were not his compositions. Anyway, the final result is impressive.

In Interstellar, Nolan takes you to the next level of science fiction movies. Of course, films like these have probably come before, but he manages to take the theme a little further. Like I said, just brush up a little on some science terminologies and you should be fine. You may have been able to make sense of other films, but Interstellar requires you to have some scientific knowledge as well. One you satisfy this requirement, get ready, to be dazzled!

My Rating: 4/5
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 73%