Interstellar

Interstellar

Director – Christopher Nolan

Writers – Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan

2014, USA-UK-Canada

Stars – Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain

 

‘Interstellar’ is ultimately more about parenting than space adventures. This is what they call the “heart” of the film. Perhaps this may interest you more than the hard science-fiction elements such as playing with time and wormholes that occur in the second act, or maybe not.  There is little doubt that this middle section, which involves visiting other planets in a search of a new home for mankind, can provoke genuine awe: it’s what special-effects companies were made for, to provide alien landscapes and giant waves and spaceships… But despite this, there is the nagging self-absorbed feeling that the film thinks that the human individual and his feelings trump this awe. There’s the sense that it’s a little strong on the “I am centre of the universe (and other dimensions)!” It’s the same issue that troubles ‘Arrival’, although ‘Arrival’, as Philip Challinor writes, fails dramatically by making the super-smarts of its female protagonist secondary to motherhood (be smart, girls, but don’t forget what you’re on the planet for!). Not that science-fiction can’t be moving,* but these films seem to foreground and broadcast their emotional arcs in such a mainstream fashion (“Hey, we’re going to be, you know, weepy!”) that their serious treatment of otherworldly ideas seem belittled consequently.

Perhaps this would not be so problematic if Matthew McConaughey (who is, you know, great) as Cooper was not such an all-round genius at everything: not only is he an accomplished farmer but he used to be a brilliant space-craft pilot too. He kind of excels at parenting too: he’ll happily drive through a field of presumably precious crops for an exhilarating parenting moment in pursuit of an errant old drone, for example.** This means his character doesn’t really offer friction, except where he might occasionally butt heads with others. But we know they’re wrong and he’s right anyway. He is perpetually in motion by quest, but when he finally makes his way back his daughter, the moment is more-or-less waved off and brief, leading the audience investment a little short-changed. For a film so hellbent on parenting-as-cosmic-quest, the daughter should not be a McGuffin.

‘Interstellar’ won the American Film Institute 2015 award, and the blurb says:

INTERSTELLAR is proof on earth that artists provide our strongest voice to rage against the dying of the light. Christopher Nolan illuminates the darkness of deepest space with the brilliance of his singular creative vision, while grounding the cosmos in a deeply emotional tale of fathers and daughters. This is cinema at its most ambitious, with Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain providing the beating heart to this awe-inspiring work that reaches across time and space to find meaning in the unexplainable.

 Well, it is a film that is heavy on explanations for its science-fiction – black holes, other dimensions, etc – and that’s what agreeably grounds it. This is where it shines: heady ideas and existential peril that bends time and space.

The imbalance is that the sentimentality outweighs the science-fiction. The aesthetic, effects and ideas are fascinating and wonderfully executed, because Nolan excels at this stuff; indeed, this middle section is apparently credited more to Christopher than his co-writer, Jonathan Nolan. But these strengths are mitigated by the human drama being routine and pedestrianly executed. Hans Zimmer will sweep and soar at the emotional bits, for example (but the score did win an Oscar). It’s very signposted and it is not nearly as smart as it should be; or rather it relationship drama could benefit from being as smart as its concepts. 

The ending is not so much gratuitous as a little unsatisfying. Via Entertainment Weekly:

Nolan’s early take on the ending, however, essentially cuts Cooper off inside the black hole. His script “had the Einstien-Rosen bridge [wormhole] collapse when Cooper tries to send the data back.”

Actually, Jonathan Nolan's original ending would have struck me as more tragic rather than sentimental, and therefore conceptually superior. Science would not necessarily give way to sentiment.

‘Ad Astra’ is more obvious pulpy fun because its flaws are more evident so you can just go along for the ride without thinking too hard. ‘2001: a space odyssey’ remains the pinnacle of Hard Sci-Fi cinema and doesn’t feel the need to explain itself or rely on routine human dramatics. ‘Interstellar’ is better than the former but doesn’t reach the heights of the latter.

When I watched ‘Interstellar’ for a second time, I enjoyed it more as pulp, as the kind of science-fiction I was reading as a teenager (Harry Harrison comes to mind). For me, in this example, “grounding the cosmos in a deeply emotional tale of fathers and daughters” is not respectful of and belittles the cosmos.

·   * For example, that’s me as an adult on the bus trying not to cry as I’m finishing ‘Flowers for Algernon’; that’s me as a teenager wondering why Philip K Dick’s ‘Our Friends from Frolix 8’ has left me feeling so oddly emotional.

·   ** They grew the field for the film and sold the crops.