From acclaimed director Christopher Nolan, Interstellar sees retired pilot Cooper
(Matthew McConaughey) depart on a desperate mission to save what is left of
mankind. With an intrepid group of space explorers in tow (including previous
Nolan collaborator Anne Hathaway), Cooper is forced to leave his children
behind on a dying Earth and search for new life among the stars, by way of a
newly discovered wormhole.
In the past, despite his many technological or visual achievements,
Nolan has often been criticised for a lack of emotion in his movies, and Interstellar proves once and for all
that this is nonsense: the central performances from Matthew McConaughey and
Mackenzie Foy as his daughter Murph are powerhouses of emotion, and I’ll let my
tear-stained face attest to that. Usual Nolanites Anne Hathaway and Michael
Caine put in fine turns, but annoyingly the most surprising and interesting performance
I can’t actually talk about because of (very complex) plot reasons.
Without the guiding hand of usual cinematographer Wally Pfister
and with a heavier reliance on digital effects than most of his back catalogue,
Nolan has somehow managed to pull of the most visually awe-inspiring film since Gravity. Hoyte Van Hoytema perfectly
captures the grounded, dust-caked world of Earth whilst the injection of CGI is
blended seamlessly with the physical locations and sets. There is considerable
debt owed to 2001: A Space Odyssey, but
the coldness many find in Kubrick is refuted by the aforementioned
performances.
Composer Hans Zimmer has been scoring movies for over twenty
years, and going into Interstellar I
was slightly concerned as to what direction he’d take the piece, and whether
his goldmine of composition would finally run dry: I needn’t have worried for a
second, because the film contains his finest work. The bombast of Man of Steel and the honking of Inception is thrown away and replaced
with an ethereal, pulsing soundtrack that is based on an incredibly simple
two-note foundation but grows to encompass the galaxy-spanning journey of the
film.
At its heart, the film looks like a high-concept genre
picture but expands into something much more, taking on philosophy, theoretical
science and morality and emerging not only unscathed but triumphant. The nearly
three-hour running time gives the story time to introduce these complex issues
and trusts that they will take hold and develop within the audience without
feeling long or languorous at all. It is completely unafraid to challenge the audience
and even Nolan’s staunchest critics have to accept this.
Interstellar is an
incredible experience, marrying the visual ballet of Kubrick with the tangible
reality of the original Star Wars and
the heart of Spielberg. If we strip away the stunning visuals, expertly-woven
plot and the entrancing soundscape, we are left with the heart-rending story of
a father and daughter torn apart by space and time but whose love transcends
both. Only one question remains: where can Nolan go from here?
★★★★★
