Interstellar Review

We used to look up in the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, but now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirtIt's impossible to watch a movie like Interstellar and not picture Christopher Nolan shaking his fists at each rom com and slapstick comedy that declines to take full potential on the filmmaking medium. Not to say Nolan is elitist, but it's become clear through his last few offerings that he believes in the power of movies to transcend ordinary life, not duplicate it. And it should come as no surprise that the director who once told us we "mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger" chose to push the absolute boundaries of how much an audience is willing to think with his most ambitious film to date. It's important to keep in mind that no matter how much wormholes and the fifth dimension get brought up, the universal (intergalactic?) truth in Nolan movies is that they're about the people. Inception wasn't about dreams, it was about a man's struggle to deal with his wife's death and get back to see his kids. Memento wasn't about memory loss, it was about the lies we tell our selves to get through the day. And Interstellar wasn't about time travel, it was about the undeniable love between father and daughter that supersedes even the most concrete scientific laws. With that in mind, let's jump into the wormhole and take a look at the experience that was Interstellar. Matthew McConaughey continues his run as the hottest actor in the business as Cooper, the former NASA pilot turned farmer by a Great Depression-esque dust bowl caused by blight that wiped out Earth's food supply. The exact setting of this dystopia is hazy, but isn't meant to be viewed as thousands of years in the future. Based on what we see, it could happen tomorrow, which is an important aspect of the film. Cooper lives with his father-in-law Donald, son Tom, and exceptionally bright daughter Murph who has no problem throwing fists when someone tries to say the moon landing was staged. But this all gets tossed to the side when a "ghost" gives Cooper and Murph to NASA's secret headquarters, where Cooper is asked to pilot an interstellar flight into a wormhole in hopes of finding a new planet to live on. And despite the pleas of Murph, who claims that the same ghost has told him to "STAY", Cooper heads into the breach on the pretense that Alfred Dr. Brand will find a way to transport humans to the first planet they find suitable for human life. The plan is pretty simple -- relatively speaking. There is Plan A: investigate the three planets where there is potential for human life, send a signal back to earth that it is safe, and find a way to transport the population across the galaxy. Or the "less fun" Plan B: abandon every Earthling that didn't come along for the voyage and start a new civilization with the frozen embryos that the crew brought along with them. Since each crew member has family back on Earth their initial choice isn't difficult, but fuel shortage, black holes that make time a precious commodity, and the omnipresence of a mysterious race known only as "they" cause each choice the crew makes to be more difficult than the last. While character motivation is the vessel that drives this movie, I'd be remiss not to mention how much of a sci-fi movie this really is. With solar scenery that makes you glad this movie was made in 2014 and complex notions about existence that would make a past McConaughey character proud, Interstellar has a much larger scope than Gotham City (despite what those sweeping skyline shots would lead you to believe). And that complicated set piece of an ending, combining time travel, love as a science, and huge implications of the future of mankind cause you to start viewing that spinning top as little more than a piece of pewter. The challenge this presents to the audience is to keep up with this highly Nolanesque storyline without the comfort of the "real world" to fall back on when you get confused. For a hardcore Nolan fan, his 9th go around may not pack as much of a punch as he might have liked. A tortured protagonist with a dead wife hasn't had as much of an impact on us since Leonard's investigation. And astronauts and time travel might not be enough to satisfy the fans of a director that has constantly spoiled his audience with "cool stuff". But there's something different about Interstellar, something that parallels Cooper's continuous plunges into the unknown. Interstellar is all about the limits we put on ourselves. Whether it be teachers telling Tom not to get his hopes up for college, or directors afraid their ambitious films will be called pretentious, there seems to be something about humans that prevents us from going into the great beyond. And with a script that shoots for the stars and an ending that shows our ability is only limited by our own ambition, Interstellar refuses to go gentle into that good night without pleading its audience to start aiming for something higher.