Lucas
Versantvoort / November 27, 2014
Interstellar is a film that transcends the label ‘film’ and
instead becomes an ‘experience’. Director Nolan embarks on an interstellar journey
seeking to touch upon various universal themes. This all coalesces into a film
that undoubtedly has its fair share of problems, but the overall experience
more than makes up for it.
Interstellar presents its own spin on a dystopian
future. Food production is grinding to a halt due to a never-ending series of
dust storms. Widow and former NASA pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is now a
farmer together with his teenage son, 10-year old daughter Murph (Mackenzie
Foy) and his father-in-law. Murph believes her room is inhabited by a ghost.
Cooper of course gives her the ‘there are no such things as ghosts’ treatment,
but they soon discover some kind of ‘intelligence’ is leaving coded messages in
the form of binary coordinates in the dust. Cooper intends to go alone, but
Murph sneaks onboard Cooper’s truck. They stumble upon a secret NASA base led
by professor Brand (Michael Caine). Brand explains that a recently discovered
wormhole might be the key to humanity’s salvation. Due to the sorry state of
the earth, it is likely the next generation might very well be the last and new
habitable planets must thus be discovered. Cooper reluctantly—and to Murph’s
devastation—decides to join the crew, consisting of Brand’s daughter, biologist
Amelia (Anne Hathaway), physicist Romilly, geographer Doyle and two robots who bear
more than a passing resemblance to 2001’s
monolith. This little summary doesn’t come close to encompassing all the film’s
events and what it’s trying to achieve, but it gives you an idea of the film’s
premise.
One of the major things that left me
satisfied was Nolan’s mostly competent handling of the emotional content,
particularly the relationship between Cooper and Murph. Nolan has always been
more interested in ‘ideas’ and the emotional accessibility of his depictions of
human emotions and relationships have suffered for it. Case in point: Inception. I never really ‘felt’ the
relationship between Cobb and Mal. Yes, it was thematically tied to the
concepts of dreams, but I never cared for it. Particularly their last scene
features some really awkward writing. In Interstellar
however, Nolan and his brother have stepped up their game and ensured Cooper
and Murph’s relationship was well-handled. This is mostly due to McConaughey
and Mackenzie Foy. The scene where Cooper talks to her before leaving and how
his leaving is sonically crosscut with the countdown prior to the ship taking
off, was the first time the film engaged me on an emotional level and that’s
something you don’t get with every Nolan film. (Spoilers) Another compelling
moment is when things spiral out of control on a planet featuring tidal waves
the size of buildings. They narrowly escape and realize the time they spent
there equals 23 years on Earth. Cooper is then confronted with 23 years’ worth
of video recordings made by his family. It’s a highly impactful moment. These
scenes are some of the best parts of the film, because Nolan perfectly applies
the science behind it (in this case, relativity) to enhance the human drama and
the emotional content.
If the film has a major weakness, it’s the
expository dialogue. A sci-fi film of this scale naturally can’t avoid
exposition, but it occasionally undercuts the emotional impact of the film. The
scene with the recordings I just mentioned is followed up by a scene featuring
a rather uncomfortable monologue on the concept of ‘love’ which feels awkward,
especially after the emotional directness of the previous scene. Other parts of
the film also suffer from this tendency to use expository dialogue surrounding
emotional moments. This is only exacerbated by some of the dialogue sounding
really unnatural. There’s a plot twist where Cooper and the rest find out
they’ve been lied to somewhat, to which Brand responds, “but the lie, the
monstrous lie.” If that sounds like something that an actual human being would
say, then you’re wrong. The film doesn’t collapse under the weight of all the
exposition though and it mostly succeeds in making the film more accessible (though
I can’t possibly comment on the scientific accuracy). It’s just that you can
feel that Nolan is more a director of ‘ideas’ and there are just as many times when
he fails in molding it all into a thrilling whole as there are times when he
succeeds (the wave scene and its aftermath).
The music by Zimmer deserves mention
as well. Zimmer has been the go-to guy for blockbusters for the past decade and
they’ve all been characterized by a similar simplistic and heavy sound. For Interstellar, Zimmer seems to have
realized there are things beyond bass and ostinatos and has crafted a score
that is still very much a Zimmer score, but deviates enough to warrant a
recommendation. At times it approaches something like Philip Glass’s score to Koyaanisqatsi. Also of note is Nolan’s
response to reviews decrying the score’s overwhelming nature and how it tends
to drown out dialogue. He responded by saying he doesn’t “agree with the idea
that you can only achieve clarity through dialogue. Clarity of story, clarity
of emotions—I try to achieve that in a very layered way using all the different
things at my disposal—picture and sound.” What I find hilarious is that while denouncing
dialogue as the sole means for conveying ideas and emotions, he nevertheless
fills Interstellar to the brim with ‘deliberately
meaningful’ and expository dialogue, sometimes to the point of losing the
audience’s emotional investment.
One of the main questions Interstellar has people asking is if
it’s the next 2001. Only time will
tell, but I think the main thing holding Interstellar
back in this regard is something that characterizes most of Nolan’s epics: the
tendency to please everyone, to combine the epic scale of a Hollywood
blockbuster with ‘intelligent’ filmmaking. Whereas 2001 has always been an undefinable film, Interstellar is definitely the more conventional film and one has
to wonder whether a deliberate attempt to ‘please everyone’ leads to something
akin to the spiritual successor to 2001;
my guess is it doesn’t. Take the action sequences for instance. 2001’s ‘action scenes’ were defined by a
deliberately slow pace that emphasized how humans are like fish out of water in
space whereas Interstellar’s tend to
feel more ‘blockbuster-y’ by nature; they’re there so the film doesn’t devolve
into a dissertation on universal themes.
All in all, there’s a lot to
appreciate about Interstellar. The
acting is formidable, the emotional scenes are mostly well-handled (somewhat of
a first for Nolan), the action scenes (particularly the wave scene) are intense
and the science on display is intriguing without it hurting the film’s appeal. The
next 2001 it’s not, but it’s
definitely one hell of an experience,
warts and all.
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