Though Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster “Interstellar” did remarkably well in the box office, I left the theatre Saturday feeling the film had failed to take advantage of a true opportunity to be great.
It’s just that there were three key elements of the film that, to me, didn’t hit their mark as sharply as they could have. Before I get to my ultimate problems with the film, I do want to say that maybe one the movie’s greatest strengths, like any Nolan movie, is the tremendous job done on the part of the actors. McConaughey, in particular, is spectacular in the movie and continues the hot streak in which he has found himself over the last year-and-a-half of his career. It also bears mentioning that Anne Hathaway and Michael Caine play their respective roles nicely and help provide the film with a sense of purpose that was lacking throughout the movie.
While the acting was good, I think the movie falls short of emotionally connecting with the audience. The movie uses acting as a smokescreen to hide the fact there was little emotional exploration. They just barely nudged the tip of the iceberg, and it seemed that every time one of the characters came across something in their lives that challenged them, the movie didn’t explore those feelings as steadfastly as it should have.
Maybe my favorite scene in the movie takes place when the main character, Cooper, gets to watch some old video messages from his children who are now adults. To me, this is one of the only times the film manages to get the emotional element just right. It’s not just the fact that McConaughey excels in the scene, but the true beauty of that five minute stretch is in the idea of watching the individuals you love most grow up before your very eyes and not even being there to witness it unfold. The scene did a tremendous job at hammering home one of the main points of the movie, which is that love is one of the only emotions that can resist the powers of time and change. If the film had given audiences more of these kind of moments, it would have added a whole new element to the picture, instead of simply laundering in action sequences too much.
One of the key themes Nolan presented in the film was the overall lack of empathy each character displayed. This struck me as abnormal, especially considering the way the characters perceived the well-being of the citizens on Earth compared to their loved ones. There were numerous instances in the movie of either McConaughey’s or Hathaway’s character jeopardizing the potential overall success of the mission of finding a new planet to hold the human population because of their ulterior motives for wanting to get back as soon as possible to the planet Earth, or in the case of Hathaway, wanting to risk time to see an old love interest.
This all goes back to tying the theme of love as an all powerful force– it guides us as human beings and the decisions we make, but the extent to which each character held to this perception was a tad over-the-top.
The last little nuance that stuck with me during “Interstellar” was the belief that while the humans played their part in destroying the Earth, they also have the imminent power to save it. While I like the theme as a whole, the movie spent little to no time actually diving into what had caused the Earth to go under. At most, a speech from Caine’s character served to fill the audience in on what caused the impending doom. When you consider the scope of material that Nolan presents, it isn’t nearly enough to justify the lengths they go to to try and solve the problem at hand.
At the end of the day, we are left with a movie that tries to use deep underlying ideas revolving around love and the human psyche to take us on a journey through the deepest and darkest depths of space. It comes close to fulfilling the director’s intended vision, but realistically fails to refine the greater points that could have made this film an instant classic.
