Newton figured out gravity, and Einstein took care of relativity. Someday, someone might come along and solve the pressing issue of filmmaking hubris.
It won’t be Christopher Nolan, a wildly talented filmmaker who swings from his heels and usually connects (Inception, the Dark Knight trilogy). In Interstellar, he misses, not horribly, but badly enough to highlight some of his less fruitful habits. If you want characters gabbing away at explanations of lofty concepts, and a pounding musical score that drowns out dialogue, then this must be the place.
The premise promises wonder, and it delivers in fits and starts. The world of the near future is choked by dust storms that make the plains of the 1930s look like an oasis. (Fans of Ken Burns’ The Dust Bowl miniseries will recognize some talking heads from that project, who fill the same purpose here.) Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former pilot who still dreams of space, must instead maintain the family farm to help sustain a dwindling food supply. Then he gets a dream opportunity: Travel through a wormhole to another galaxy in hopes of finding a more hospitable planet.
Interstellar starts out feeling like Nolan’s Steven Spielberg homage, establishing a foundation of family and loss with a touch of awe looming over the horizon. Spiritual implications nurture the dry terrain. “Didn’t you say science is about how much we don’t know?” asks Cooper’s young daughter, Murph (Mackenzie Foy, who grows up to become Jessica Chastain). Interstellar’s time on Earth is rewarding and underplayed, with some nifty conceptual touches: Murph gets in trouble at school for insisting the Apollo space missions weren’t just manufactured propaganda designed to bankrupt the Soviets. Distrust of innovation has reached an extreme.
Then we head to space, courtesy of a top-secret NASA project led by an avuncular professor (Michael Caine). Cooper gets to planet-hop with a crew that includes the professor’s astronaut daughter (Anne Hathaway). Before long, we’re being speechified into high-concept submission. For every eye-popping marvel, including a wormhole for the cinematic ages, there’s a long, winding multicharacter discourse on astrophysics, or, in the movie’s more fecund moments, the power of love.
Interstellar reminded me that a Nolan movie can create the sensation of being trapped in a world with people who insist on telling you how smart they are, over and over again.
The old adage about showing instead of telling comes to mind. Interstellar shows plenty, especially in the 70 mm Imax format. And it tells, and tells, and tells. Nolan is after nothing less than great cosmic significance. I admire his ambition and audacity. So does he. Imagine Kubrick’s 2001, populated by characters who won’t shut up.
The gab has a way of squeezing out that hard-fought sense of wonder, until the end, when the emotional resonance makes a return. The human core of Interstellar is powered by Cooper’s bond with his daughter, and the gravitational pull of home that goes back to Odysseus. (How does Chastain manage to play the daughter of McConaughey, her elder by only eight years? It’s all about time and space, and Interstellar is happy to explain.)
The climax contains some tangled magic. If you’re not exhausted by almost three hours of intergalactic lecturing, you may even be able to feel it.
Interstellar (B-)
Directed by Christopher Nolan. PG-13 (some intense perilous action and brief strong language). 169 mins. Opens today in Imax, 70 mm and 35 mm formats; in wide release Friday.
Catch The Big Screen discussion at 8:20 a.m. Thursday on KERA-FM (90.1)
On Twitter: @chrisvognar
