Interstellar

In the not too distant future, the inhabitants of planet Earth are faced with an alarming shortage of food and resources, while an increasing number of sandstorms threaten to make life even more unsustainable. In a bid to find a new world that the human race can make their home, a small team of astronauts board NASA’s last remaining spaceship and set off on a pioneering mission, as they try to explore a new galaxy via a mysterious wormhole.

Ever been in the presence of someone who got so caught up in explaining a theory they had just stumbled upon, that they lost you halfway through their earnest monologue overflowing with scientific jargon? That’s a big fat metaphor that aptly summarises Interstellar, one of the smartest blockbusters to ever grace our screens yet also an unexpectedly dissatisfying movie-going experience.

You certainly can’t fault the Nolan brothers (Christopher directing, his brother Jonathan penning the screenplay) for a lack of effort. From the moment Michael Caine and Anne Hathaway’s scientists launch into detailed explanations on wormholes, binary coordinates and gravitational waves, it becomes clear the two filmmakers have done their homework. Problem is, they probably got into it a little too much. It’s never a good sign when characters in science fiction films need to explain a convoluted narrative with the aid of a whiteboard (Emmett Brown’s timeline diagram in Back To The Future Part II being the rare exception) - Interstellar resorts to this device not once, but three times, clearly suggesting that the Nolans have bitten off more than they can chew.

That’s not to say that Interstellar should’ve been dumbed down – if anything, it’s got the opposite problem of the Transformers movies, which could do with more brains to go with all the brawn. But by cramming in so much scientific exposition, the Nolans often risk alienating their audience completely, when there’s clearly a very powerful human component to the plot that is far too often overlooked.

At its core, Interstellar is the story about a man trying to get home to his family, both in the literal and metaphorical sense. In the hands of Matthew McConaughey, who’s currently experiencing an astounding career renaissance, the scenes in which lead astronaut Cooper is either breaking away from his daughter as he’s leaving Earth or watching his kids rapidly grow up before his eyes on video logs transmitted to the spaceship, pack an undeniable emotional punch. If there’s anything keeping this space odyssey grounded, it’s McConaughey’s bravura performance, which inevitably overshadows all the supporting players, including fellow acting heavyweight in the making, Jessica Chastain.

Also worth mentioning is that, despite the afore-mentioned misgivings with the way he handles his subject matter, Christopher Nolan remains nonetheless the most gifted mainstream director currently working in Hollywood, proving once again that he’s just as adroit at delivering a monumental set-piece (superbly conveying the right balance of dread and excitement that one would feel at entering a black hole for the first time) or handling the more quietly powerful moments, such as the scene in which a stranded astronaut breaks down after seeing another human being for the first time in years.

But then Christopher’s studies on physics and relativity kick in again, resulting in a final act twist that is likely to confound casual viewers and infuriate astronomy students. It’s daring, it’s different, it’s definitely something new that we haven’t been exposed to before on the silver screen, but there will be some head scratching. Worst of all, it comes neatly bow-tied with a “love conquers all” message which is seriously out of place with all the scientific babble we’ve had to endure until this point.

Is Interstellar a bad film? Far from it, it would actually be nice to see more blockbusters with this much drive and originality. But the end product certainly doesn’t live up to the audience’s expectation and, quite possibly, the Nolans’ ambition.

3/5