‘Missed The Boat’ - Episode #3: ‘Interstellar’

Directed by Christopher Nolan

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine

I would love to be able to explain the technicalities of what happens in Interstellar, but I won’t. Not because I don’t want to give spoilers, because I’m not entirely sure myself. Is that the point of the movie? That these kinds of questions, like the idea of infinity, for example, are always going to be beyond our comprehension? It’s certainly beyond mine, but maybe everyone else gets it...here go then, a review from a potential bonehead.

Interstellar begins with a depressing outlook of the near future. The earth is essentially dead already; dust storms wipe out crops, technology has regressed, and we’ve all slowed down due to lack of oxygen, knowingly plodding towards our own demise. There’s no imminent meteor threat, no zombie virus, no having to always cover your eyes, or you’ll kill yourself. The end of the world that Nolan has created is perhaps more chilling in that there’s no drama or fanfare about it. There’s just nothing apart from the wait. Jeez.

Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and his daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy) find themselves at a worn down, secret NASA base, where Michael Caine and Anne Hathaway inform them of a plan. Well, two plans. The first plan saves the people currently on earth, and the second would secure the future of humanity. Both of which require Cooper’s help. I usually have little interest in shielding people from spoilers of a film that came out 7 years ago, but I won’t be going into depth about what happens in the film. I hear you cry, ‘well, Charlotte, that would be because you don’t understand it.’ What I will say is that there are a series of thrills, surprise appearances, and stunning cinematography that you should just watch yourselves and enjoy. I will also say that there is a cameo role by a popular actor that was kept secret in its marketing, and I will be mentioning their name later.

Acting is strong throughout. An extended close of Cooper’s face reacting to the messages from his children allows McConaughey to showcase the main character's deep emotions. Indescribable grief and glimmers of happiness underpinning sorrow all come naturally. Both actors who play his daughter Murph, Mackenzie Foy and Jessica Chastain, do an excellent job of portraying her story, perfectly combining the emotions that drove her as a child into the science that becomes her motivation as an adult. There’s a handful of dodgy lines, but all the actors can still make them work.

Negatives are few, but they’re there. Interstellar is 30 minutes too long, and my choice for the first scene cut would be Anne Hathaway's schmaltzy speech about love transcending everything. They spend too much time discussing what their next move is when, in my albeit limited astrophysics experience, the routes tend to be set before people head up into space. There’s an issue with sound as action sequences are loud, and dialogue seems to be at a whisper volume in places. There’s an out of place fight sequence. There’s also the major question that if Cooper was the best pilot NASA ever had, why didn’t they approach him to fly to ship instead of waiting on him to rock up at their doorstep? Cooper does ask this, but it’s explained away rather unsatisfactorily.

Interstellar is a spectacle. It is a film that tells a rich tale and leaves you feeling pleasantly drained. It weaves together the biggest possible questions of humanity with the nuances of familial relationships and love. It leaves it to audiences to decide what they will take away from it.

It’s about human relationships. There’s always going to be the people who will “not go gentle into that good night.” There are the explorers who further humanity by performing ground-breaking feats of engineering and science. Interstellar is set against a backdrop of space and time, but it’s really a character study about the explorers and when it is time for them to go and save the world, who and what they leave behind. Notable points:

• Poor Romilly. Although he had a couple of naps, I feel that he would be more insane when Cooper and Brand returned.

• How did those chirpy robots move like they were on wheels when they were on something resembling metal blocks? These are the real questions.

• When the two characters are reunited towards the end, I couldn’t help but think they should have spent more than 2 minutes together. One of them pretty much tells the other to piss off.

• Matt Damon said that he was hesitant to take on The Martian after playing a cameo role in this film, both about his character being stranded on a distant planet. Ridley Scott then came out and said, ‘the movies are totally fucking different,’ which is a great example of a conclusion requiring no explanation.