Wow people sure love to be harsh on a critic for expressing her opinion of a movie 'she has actually seen'...disagree (if YOU have seen the movie), but the personal attacks are childish and cowardly.
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Interstellar May Be Grand, But It Doesn't Connect
Melinda Sue Gordon
Matthew McConaughey as a farmer/astronaut/dreamer.
There’s so much space in Christopher Nolan’s nearly three-hour intergalactic extravaganza Interstellar that there’s almost no room for people. This is a gigantosaurus movie entertainment, set partly in outer space and partly in a futuristic dustbowl America where humans are in danger of dying out, and Nolan -- who co-wrote the script with his brother, Jonathan -- has front-loaded it with big themes and even bigger visuals. Interstellar is supposedly all about what it means to be human, but it's supersized in case we really are so out of touch that we need to have everything blown up IMAX-big. “We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars,” says Matthew McConaughey’s farmer-astronaut-dreamer in one of his many, many proclamations about life, family, and the cosmos. “Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.” But even the dirt in Interstellar looks spectacularly art-directed. Nolan may be invoking Walker Evans, but Interstellar is really just Jethro Bodine–sized.
Nolan has a seemingly inexhaustible store of extravagant ideas.
This is all the wonder money can buy, and then some. Nolan opens the movie with faux-documentary commentary from old folks settin’ a spell and reflecting on their youth in a dying, dust-choked world. One woman -- recognizable as Ellen Burstyn -- says that her father was a farmer, “like everybody else back then.” In the world of this woman’s childhood, there’s a surfeit of engineers and not enough people to grow food. Which means that men of science have been forced into the more menial (though not less important) job of coaxing life out of dry dirt.
McConaughey’s Cooper is one of these guys, though he can never disavow his science-geek roots. One of his two kids (played by Timothée Chalamet as a youngster, but he’ll grow up to be Casey Affleck) isn’t doing well in school; he’ll be placed as a farmer, instead of being one of the lucky few to advance to engineering school. But Cooper’s daughter, 12-year-old Murph (Mackenzie Foy, who will eventually morph into a petulant, one-note Jessica Chastain), soaks up her dad’s sciencey musings. She gets into trouble at school for showing off one of her father’s old books about the Apollo 11 lunar landing, which the asshole autocrats of the future have deemed propaganda, just a bit of fakery pulled off by the United States to bankrupt the Soviet Union.
Details
Interstellar
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Paramount Pictures
Opens November 5
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Directed by Christopher Nolan. Written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan. Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, and Wes Bentley.
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Directed by Christopher Nolan
Paramount Pictures
Opens November 5
Follow @VoiceFilmClub
Directed by Christopher Nolan. Written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan. Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, and Wes Bentley.
Subscribe to the Voice Film Club podcast
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Cooper will end up leaving Murph, and Earth: A seemingly random -- but not really -- chain of events leads him to a secret space station where an old professor of his, Michael Caine’s Dr. Brand, is planning a mission. Though NASA was dismantled long ago -- space travel for exploration’s sake was long ago deemed frivolous by the government -- Dr. Brand and his team, chief among them his daughter, Amelia (Anne Hathaway), believe that the only hope for mankind lies in the stars. Luckily, Brand has located a wormhole leading to another galaxy, which may contain at least one inhabitable planet. And so Cooper, along with Amelia and two other crew members (played by Wes Bentley and David Gyasi), head into space in search of dust-free air and unspoiled water.
Cooper and his colleagues encounter frozen worlds and watery ones, and the dangers they face are both existential and specific. The universe Nolan has invented for them, drawn from both science (the movie is partly inspired by the work of theoretical physicist Kip Thorne) and movie dreams (paging Stanley Kubrick), is vast, awe-inspiring, and terrifying. In an early scene, the crew chatter and pick at one another inside the cabin, but thanks to crackerjack cutting, camerawork, and sound design, we can float on the outside, where it’s deafeningly quiet -- the planes of the ship hang delicately in the breach of nothingness. This vessel is so gorgeously alone; for a moment, Nolan captures the idea of space as a source of both wonder and despair.
But even the grandest visuals aren’t enough to carry Interstellar. A chief complaint filed against Alfonso Cuarón’s joy-and-anguish-in-space symphony Gravity was that the dialogue was sentimental, and there was too much of it. But in Interstellar, Cooper, a man of science, soaks up plenty of oxygen with his bromides about the importance of family. Other characters follow suit, apparently never having heard the song telling us that we’re people who need people. Nolan gives John Lithgow, as Cooper’s salt-of-the-earth father-in-law, healthy heaps of cornpone dialogue like, “They’re saying this is the last harvest for okra. Forever.”
There’s more: As a coda to a complicated explanation of the black hole, Bentley’s character adds helpfully that it’s “a literal heart of darkness.” Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night” is quoted at least three times, in case we don’t grasp its significance the first two. At one point, three crew members leave the mothership to explore a possibly life-sustaining planet. The catch, poignant in its implications, is that seven Earth years will pass for each hour they spend on this threateningly foreign soil. Gyasi’s character -- he’s the token black guy, but at least the movie has one -- stays behind, and when McConaughey and company return, not only is he visibly aged, but he’s wearing a plaid Redd Foxx bathrobe.
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20 comments
Please tell me this isn't the same critic that gave "Gravity" such accolades, when it had no plot and was so cliche it was boring!
Hey Stephanie. Can't be bothered to be politically correct and polite cause I believe you are nothing more than a internet troll and definitely don't deserve any respect so I just cut to the chase. I think you are too old and too stupid to understand criticism. But I was thinking maybe one of your few half -functioning neurons still have it in them to fire an action potential. After this abomination which you probably call a '' film review'' I read all your other reviews on Chris Nolan films. You gave rotten reviews to the prestige, the dark knight, inception etc etc. all with the same excuse. That Chris Nolan just can't connect on a emotional level. Well Stephanie, if you know that he is just unable to connect on a emotional level, and you know that he is going to disappoint your lovely emotional side, then why bother watching his films? maybe you just can't get enough of playing the role of an overly-attached girlfriend and you think you can one day fix Nolan the robot? or maybe you failed to connect with your kids on a deep emotional level and you are seeing yourself in the mirror every time a Nolan film comes out? or maybe you are just a troll, maybe you have seen the dark knight and thought '' oh what is wrong with this bloody joker ? I don't want my grandchildren to be anything like Nolan's villains so I might as well start a anti-Nolan revolution on the internet and troll him as much as I possibly could .. '' I seriously don't know Stephanie what the matter is with you. You are always one of the first critics to review Nolan's films and always come up with the same seemingly inexhaustible store of extravagant bs about Nolan and his films. Considering that you don't give a toss about other not-very-emotional directors, I think you just have a personal problem with Nolan and want to troll him. whatever your motives are, they are pitiful. Nolan's impact and legacy is becoming greater and greater and yours (unfortunately) is becoming smaller and smaller. I hope you find a different path to connect to whoever you want to connect on a deeper emotional level cause this job is not doing you any favour
Steph, you're one of my favourite reviewers but I have to complain about this one.
I don't particularly like Nolan (at least, not recent Nolan). I loathe superhero movies and wasn't impressed by Inception.
I went into Interstellar thinking I probably would be disappointed, just looking forward to some flashy scenes, booming Zimmer music and maybe good performances.
It hit me hard (to my surprise). The story between McConaughey and the little actress devastated me. Alright, I'm a Daddy's girl. Maybe that's the key. And I lost my father early so that compounded the effect I suppose.
McConaughey - for me - IS the movie. After True Detective, I was expecting a lot from him and he more than delivered. The scene you describe (critically) stunned me. I can't recall such pure acting since Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence, the scene when she falls apart where Pauline Kael memorably described Rowlands' face as being "a 3-ring circus".
You're a naughty girl - you've put too many spoilers in your review, too.
this review is what it means to be a critic these days....criticize just for the heck of it. i am surprised that you found that other than one scene in inception you found everything to be 'bland trickery'. Guess if you cant make one you sure as hell can spew whatever nonsense you can as a critic! What this delectable piece of yours is missing is heart...essentially what you blame Nolan for. I have seen all his movies till date and there are a few directors who can be intelligent while being commercially viable. your review reeks of some bias or grudge that you hold against the director. here is hoping your other reviews are not this bad! Critiquing should be an art no? :)
Boy have the mighty fallen, journalistically speaking. Reviews like this make me long for the literacy and style of the Jim Hoberman days!
As a film critic your review is akin to a cretin who loudly announces what's about to happen in a movie while watching. Why would you so blatantly give so much of the film away? If you can't review a film by not giving away big spoilers yore not really doing a good job.
@reznik9191 Why are you so aggressively defensive of some stranger's art, to the point of insulting another stranger as opposed to actually formulating a rationally viable retort? Just curious.
I find no emotional connect to this director's work either. His films are well produced idea-oriented commercial enterprises, not serious drama. He is also considered an intellectual artist despite his ideas often being deceptively simplistic (Check out some of Andrei Tarkovsky's work, or even Terrence Malick's if you want to see a film with a seriously formidable intellect behind it; I am sure that even Nolan would agree with me on this).
You can insult me now if it makes you feel better about different people having opinions different from (and/or seemingly adverse to) your own.
Cheers.
@reznik9191 I quote: "maybe you just can't get enough of playing the role of an overly-attached girlfriend" It really is astonishing the level of misogyny that gets kicked up in the comments gutter when a female critic dares to defy the geek orthodoxy. You, sir, are a boor.
I feel emotional connection but you don't. Everyone is different and entitled to their opinions. however ! reducing a film down to merely a platform for some sort of emotional connection is an insult to the film industry. A film is much more than that. If you think otherwise then you probably have some sort of emotional issues yourself (like Stephanie) and are looking to fill your emotional void in all the wrong places. Not every film should be emotional. Not every film should be humorous. Not every film has to be funny. Sometimes the subject matter doesn't allow it to be and if you can't take it for what it is then it is your problem not the director's. Your agenda dictates that all films should follow a certain algorithm but that is not the case for me and many others. This is where a critic should be unbiased and at least ! show an attempt to try and understand the director and his/her viewpoint. Taking everything into account and also focusing on the positive parameters in a film once in a while. Not bashing every Chris Nolan film(no matter how different) because of the same reason. It is just silly and childish. That's what internet trolls do not critics. Nolan is a very intelligent and thoughtful filmmaker. He takes his work seriously and tries to bring important stuff in life to the big screen. That in itself is worth praising. But Stephanie is just so one dimensional in her view on Nolan that she ignores every good thing about him. That is rubbish criticism. that is worthless and won't help anybody. But for a woman of her age I suspect that she just enjoys getting some temporary internet attention by bashing Nolan. I encourage you to read her reviews on other Chris Nolan films and then tell me that her reviews are unbiased and professional.
oh shit it please. people like u who try to defend the rights of women in all the wrong contexts and for all the wrong idiotic reasons are the biggest threat to women's rights. If I said something like '' all girls are overly attached to their partners and piss them off then your point would be valid but since I specifically said that Stephanie acts like one then what u said is absolutely rubbish. There are other female critics and they are doing a fantastic job well done to them ! Stephanie always and without exception attacks Nolan and I for once tried to defend Nolan's position. It's got absolutely nothing to do with other female critics and misogyny. Next time think a little bit before spewing out bs
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