Christopher Nolan’s last film, the trilogy capper The Dark Knight Rises, had many problems in its third act. Having taken a screenwriting class, attended a few lectures, and listened in on a couple workshops; if a screenplay is to run in to any trouble during the length of its pages, it will more than likely happen in the third act. Everyone stumbles, even the almighty Nolans (Chris’ brother Jonathan wrote the script for Interstellar when Steven Spielberg was attached as director) have to at some point. It looks as if Rises’ troubles also slipped into the script for their latest film. Unfortunately, the entire plot of the film has suffered… Not to say that the experience wasn’t enjoyable. As a matter of fact, this film has to be my favorite movie I’ve seen all year, next to Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Nolan has given us a vision that forces its audience to think. Ironically, the flawed script has been brought to light because of such thought. Normally a film of this scope asks for nothing more from its audience than to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride. For Christopher Nolan, simply enjoying the ride is not enough: he wants his audience to be a part of it.
Matthew
McConaughey plays Cooper, an engineer turned farmer who was once one of NASA’s
best pilots. He grows what’s one of the last sustainable crops on Earth: corn.
The remaining population of the Earth is frequently bombarded by massive dust
storms that leave a layer of dust on everything. Cooper’s daughter Murph
notices strange formations in dirt on the floor of her bedroom, a room she says
is haunted by a poltergeist communicating with her by knocking books off of a
shelf. Coop notices that there may be more to this than they think, decoding a
set of coordinates written in binary code left in the dust on the floor.
Following these coordinates, he comes face to face with a former colleague,
Professor Brand (played by Chris Nolan’s lucky charm Michael Caine). There,
Cooper learns that humanity’s days are numbered and this secret NASA
installation is the final hope for humanity. Two possibilities exist, but both
involve travel through a mysterious wormhole that popped into existence from
nothing. The USS Endurance takes off into space to explore the possibilities of
life that may lie on other planets. But on this journey, the crew, especially
Cooper and Brand, discover the very things that make us human.
The film
greatly stumbles in its plot unfortunately with a sloppy script from Jonathan
Nolan, rewritten by director Christopher when he came on board after Steven
Spielberg left the project. Nolan’s style involves that the viewer give most,
if not all of their attention, because a key plot element could come from a
rather small line of dialogue. This happens many times in Interstellar and frankly, got really tiresome by the time our
characters had left Earth. Many plot holes abound in this film, the biggest one
involving Jessica Chastain’s older Murph and Michael Cain’s character. A
particularly interesting idea is presented by Anne Hathaway’s character about
love, but isn’t explored enough after it is presented. Nolan leaves pieces of
the puzzle behind to have the audience thinking and discussing after they’ve
seen the film, but some stuff is downright not thought out at all.
What everyone will be talking about (besides the last 20 minutes of the film, which I will not write about to not spoil the film for those who have yet to see it) will be the incredibly breathtaking sequences regarding Gargantua: a massive blackhole that scientist and computer graphic artists spent hours rendering, frame by frame. It's imagery of this nature that makes the IMAX format essential and the premiere way to experience any movie of this scope. The ring of light around it seems to spin over the top and then redirected it's way down to the bottom simultaneously, twisting the perception of it in the way that the characters are disoriented by it. But for every victory, there is unfortunately a blunder. The cornfield chase early on in the film is meant to disorient the audience, just as if they were really driving through a cornfield. Again, Nolan wants us to be on the ride. But no matter what the almighty Nolan says, the truth of the matter is, I didn't fully understand the drone right away and where it came from.
The cast is
one filled out by great actors in even the smallest of roles. Nolan has no
shortage of talent wanting and waiting to work with him. Matthew McConaughey
delivers a fantastic performance as an every man who is forced to do his part
to help humanity. Jon Lithgow is criminally under-used but every moment he is
on screen is fantastic. At the heart of it all is McConaughey’s and Mackenzie
Foy as young Murph. The film at its very core is the relationship between a
father and his children and what lengths he would go to protect them. If it
were not for the strength of this central idea and performances, Interstellar would drown in its own
science infused philosophies and theories. I can’t remember the last time there
was a film that was so heavily driven by science first and foremost. At times,
it seems like both Nolans are giving priority to the scientific theories of Kip
Thorne before the actual plot of the film itself. After all, without him, the
idea would have never come along to create a film from these basic elements of
the story.
The usage
of 70mm IMAX to tell this story is a perfect marriage between technology and
its creators. In the way that George Harrison “owns” the sound of a 12-string
guitar, Christopher Nolan has made the IMAX format his own, shooting more on
these special cameras than any other film prior. The space scenes are
expansive, the cornfields are rich, and the desolation of the Endurance is
terrifying. This film must be experienced on as big a screen as possible and on
film. The texture and grain of the film stock gave certain scenes an almost
documentary-like feel and provided richness to the film that digital cameras
can’t achieve. In digital cinemas, I imagine the wormhole sequence must have
looked like something from a video game. But on 70mm IMAX film stock, it looked
like an acid trip of an intergalactic nature.
Has
Christopher Nolan given us the film he will be remembered for? I don’t believe
so. That honor, in my honest opinion, will go to either Inception or The Dark Knight.
Both of those films are damn near flawless in execution. Is Interstellar this
generation’s 2001: A Space Odyssey?
Only time will tell. Nolan’s reliance on action sequences astounds me that a
movie of this nature could even be made in today’s short attention spanned time
we live in. That is, without the studio meddling in the plans and turning this
into a full-fledged sci-fi-action picture, which it is no way. Christopher
Nolan aims to gives a film packed full of meaning, symbolism, and things to
walk away pondering as we try to wrap our minds around the concepts surrounding
Interstellar, which he achieves, but
not in the way he was intending. A more
or less polished script creates a hot mess in the third act that has a bizarre,
yet hopeful conclusion to a story about humanity’s perseverance in the face of
extreme danger and terrible odds. This is a movie that must be experienced on
the largest screen possible and with a powerful sound system. A film of this size and scale needs to be celebrated. Instead of Paramount and Warner Brothers financing yet another Transformers type film, they instead chose to take a chance on a film that is at heart, an experimental project for all involved and at it's core a love story about a father and his child.
8/10
