Review of Interstellar (2014) by Akashvijay — 05 Apr 2015

Interstellar may have been scientifically accurate but that doesn't excuse it of its thematic flaws.

Foe one I think it's tediously wordy at times. There's a lot of unnecessary dialogue that just takes away from the emotional heart of the film - like that bloke who starts explaining why worm holes ought to be spherical in 3 dimensions using flowcharts and diagrams. What was the point of doing that? For one you'd think a Nasa pilot whose mission is to enter a wormhole would know that but more importantly it degraded a thrilling moment (entering the wormhole) with a bunch of prose. And there's a lot of this in the film. The part on Newton's 3rd law made me cringe.

Characters explain the effects of warped space-time to each other and throw away cheesy relativity punch lines but they hardly ever have real human moments. I would've preferred if the film explained none of its scientific complexities. Let the audience rise up to the occasion, let them figure it out. But this is where Nolan's commercial instinct takes over. I get that he's trying to sell the film to a wider demographic and I get that there had to be some amount of exposition but Nolan does this to such an extent that it takes away the humanity of his characters. Why should I care about them? Exposition is a cheap alternative for not being able to convey your ideas through imagery. Anne Hathaway's Dr. Brandt is a poorly written character because midway through the film, her personality just flips in a dime and we have a new character clothed in the same flesh. She's introduced as a stern and no-nonsense woman but later on she starts spewing the most nonsensical things in the movie - like that "love is quantifiable" baloney she's obsessed with. Again just shows you Nolan's women can't be strong women, they can only be strong lovers. I was shocked in the end when I found out that Cooper and Brandt were supposed to end up together. Was there any chemistry there? And then you have Matt Damon who's not really a character but a walking wikipedia that's there only to list the pro's and cons of being human - the performance doesn't help either.

The part of the film that needed explaining is the sci-fi-y part (which you can't look up in a book) about how humans are planning to leave the planet. In fact I still don't understand it. So the astronauts went searching for some specific numerical data required for solving some equation that could be found only inside the black hole but how would the unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics help us leave the planet. In fact how did we leave the planet? Weren't we out of fuel? I'm not trying to poke holes or anything. I just don't get it.

There's things that the movie does very honestly and get's right - like the relationship between Murphy and Cooper but I also think there's stuff the film gets very wrong. The best scene Nolan's ever directed is from the Dark Knight when the Joker leans out of the police car and shakes his head in glee. There's no dialogue, there's no music but it's a haunting and beautiful sequence that conveys volumes. In my opinion Interstellar never achieves that sort of artistry. I still liked it but I don't think it's as good as recent sic-fi films such as Wall-E, A.I., Children of Men, Minority Report, Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind or Nolan's own the Prestige. Interstellar may leave one feeling completely indifferent or deeply moved. Sadly I'm among those who felt it was contrived, unfocussed and eventually self-defeating.