Matthew McConaughey as Cooper in Interstellar.
Interstellar
AMC Plainville 20
Plainville
Dec. 9, 2024
Interstellar is a movie of layers. It tells the story of the end of the world, the main character’s redemption and the relationship between a father and daughter all simultaneously. The main gist is that Earth is becoming uninhabitable, and Cooper (Matthew McConaughey, showing exactly why he’s a leading man) must undertake an impossible mission to find a new home for humanity. Meanwhile, his daughter Murph (played by several incredibly talented actresses-young Murph is Mackenzie Foy; middle Murph is Jessica Chastain; old Murph is Ellen Burstyn) is attempting to save the world in her own way.
I don’t know what I was doing in 2014, but somehow I missed Interstellar the first time it was in theaters. Thanks to a special 10th anniversary run, I got a chance to correct that glaring mistake at the AMC theater in Plainville.
As is usual for a Chris Nolan movie, the rest of the cast is composed of the best of the best as well. The rest of the crew joining Cooper are played by Anne Hathaway, Wes Bentley and David Gyasi. Michael Caine plays Cooper’s former mentor, John Lithgow plays his father. Matt Damon is a scientist who went ahead to scout planets. Everyone brings their A game, and each character behaves exactly as one might expect when faced with the end of the world.
It’s hard to spoil the plot of Interstellar, or honestly to even discuss it, with someone who hasn’t seen it. I would end up sounding like a raving lunatic trying to explain what transpires during the film’s 2 hour 49 minute runtime. Suffice to say, they use every single minute, and at no point did I feel bored or look at my watch.
Our heroes scout out a new potential home for humanity.
So instead of discussing the plot, I want to talk about how the movie affected me. I’ve always been a huge Star Trek fan, and have openly lamented that I was born in the 1980s instead of the 24th century so that I could be a Starfleet officer. Exploring space is a dream of mine; I’ve wished to be aboard the USS Enterprise more times than I can count. But that’s space exploration for television, where starships zip around from planet to planet in mere hours. They rely on advanced technology and clever writers to avoid the consequences of space travel.
Interstellar doesn’t do any of that. Yes, it takes place at some indeterminate point in the future (one of the most brilliant aspects of the movie is that Chris and Jonathan Nolan’s script only tells you the bare essentials of what you need to know), but it’s NASA leading the space mission, not Starfleet. The entire premise of the movie is the consequences of relativistic space travel: the faster one goes, or the closer one gets to a massive source of gravity, the slower time passes for them relative to people who aren’t experiencing those conditions. This is a real phenomenon. It makes space exploration far less attractive than it is in Star Trek — it takes years to get places in space. One year out there could mean that 50 years have passed on Earth.
Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), Brand (Anne Hathaway) and Romily (David Gyasi) plan their next move.
Nolan’s movie shatters my romanticized notions about space travel. We’re not going to be darting through space in sleek uniforms with friendly aliens about. Space travel will be grueling and isolating, and everything we know and love could be gone by the time we get back. Yet there’s a strange beauty in Nolan’s vision of space. I think it’s his focus on the human desire for contact and survival that warms the icy coldness of the void, and makes the endeavor seem hopeful if difficult.
The other aspect that greatly affected me was the relationship between Cooper and Murph. A movie like Interstellar could easily get too heady and theoretical for its own good, or devolve into sci-fi set pieces to keep the viewer’s attention. What the Nolans did to avoid either of these outcomes was constantly focus on how Cooper and Murph interact, even when Cooper is billions of lightyears away. Cool science is interesting, and seeing the alien landscapes which Cooper and crew visit is fun. But it’s the human, emotional connection that forms the core of the film, and kept me interested to see how it was resolved.
However, I’m someone who loves space travel, relativity and black holes. If you’re not into that stuff, then Interstellar will feel like three hours of torture. If you’re like me though and love to imagine the endless possibilities of space and time, then you owe it to yourself to go see this movie on a big screen while you can.
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Interstellar is playing at AMC 20 in Plainville through the weekend.
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