There are movies and then there are cinematic experiences.  Interstellar falls in the latter category. Interstellar is a film about love, humanity and our existence in the universe.  It’s a massive film that literally shoots for the stars and you have to applaud director Christopher Nolan (The Batman trilogy, Inception) for his willingness to take a chance on a film of this magnitude.  Simply stated - films like Interstellar are why we go to the movies.

 

Interstellar tells the story of a near-future Earth that is being ravaged by a dust bowl. The Earth is dying and the people who inhabit it look weary and tired.  They’ve accepted their fate and seem comfortable in just riding out the Earth as long as possible.  They’ve lost all hope.  The film does a great job of introducing us to this dusty, gloomy world as well as the characters.  

 

Matthew McConaughey plays Cooper, a former NASA pilot who was forced to give up his career and become a farmer.  Cooper lives on a farm with his young daughter,  Murphy, teenage son and father-in-law.  Instead of rushing this part of the film and blasting us off into space, Nolan takes his time, building the relationships between the characters and the film is better for it.  In a film where the scope spans galaxies, a very personal story is being told - one of fatherhood and love.

 

Soon, Cooper finds himself as a part of a small team on an impossible mission to the very depths of outer space in hopes of finding another planet that can sustain human life.  In doing so, he must leave his family behind knowing the chances of ever seeing them again are remote.  

 

Joining Cooper on his mission is Brand, an astronaut played by Anne Hathaway. Rounding out the solid cast is Jessica Chastain and Michael Caine, who plays a professor and is also Brand’s father.  The performances are fantastic, but I was most impressed by Mackenzie Foy who plays Cooper’s young daughter.  She’s an actress to keep an eye on.

 

In the hands of a less competent director, Interstellar would have exploded on liftoff. Nolan is such a dedicated and visionary director that you can see the passion he has for this film.  It’s also beautiful to see a director working without the restrictions that most directors are burdened with by the studios. It’s easy to see where films get derailed because an artist is told to make certain cuts because of length or other various reasons.

 

Interstellar is hardly a perfect film.  Many will complain that it has too much exposition. Also, the almost three hour run time will test the patience (and bladder) of many viewers.  Others will be turned off by the technical jargon about string theory and the theory of relativity that only an MIT professor could understand.  Those who invest in the film and open their minds will enjoy it.  Those that try to explain every bit of the plot will probably walk away disappointed.

 

With all that in mind, Interstellar is the kind of memorable film that will have viewers thinking and talking about it weeks after they’ve seen it, and that goes for people who didn’t enjoy it as much as others.

 

Even if the film gets away from them a little at the end, it doesn’t matter because we’ve become so invested in these characters.  At its core, Interstellar is a film about the human spirit to survive.  It’s about the power of love and how it can literally transcend space and time.  Interstellar is a triumph of the human spirit.  The film proves to us that even in the very depths of space, the best and worst of human traits still hold true.

 

It may take some time, but one day Interstellar will take its place among the very best Sci-Fi films ever made.  This includes Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film Interstellar has been compared to since it was announced.  It’s the kind of film that will inspire young children to become filmmakers and maybe even a few to become scientists.

 

Whether or not you loved Interstellar, one has to marvel at the power of filmmaking and the sheer magnitude of the endless possibilities of the imagination.