Interstellar – Film Review

Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Mackenzie Foy, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Bill Irwin, Josh Stewart.

Director: Christopher Nolan

Synopsis: With planet Earth dying due to a lack of food, former engineer Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is recruited for a mission to explore new worlds in a bid to find to find a new home world for humanity.

Review: When anyone mentions a list of the best Hollywood directors working today, names like Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese might come to mind. However, one name that will surely go down in the Hollywood Hall of Fame is Mr Christopher Nolan.The man who brought Batman back to the fore of the superhero genre, and with Interstellar, brilliant science fiction story-telling is merged with brains to give what is one of the best films of the year, and certainly one of Nolan’s best.

If you had to describe Nolan in one word, it is ambition. Inception dealt with dreams and the sub-conscious, his brilliant Dark Knight trilogy dealt with order and chaos in society, and with Interstellar, his most ambitious film to date, the premise of wormholes and the theory of relativity, inspired by the work of physicist Kip Thorne. Steven Spielberg was once attached to direct the project, but left and the project fell into the lap of the Nolan brothers.

One could argue that few directors would have the bravery to take on a film of such scope. The sheer ambition of the story might have caused other directors to back off, but not Christopher Nolan. The scale of the film on show immediately and it gets your brain thinking and working, whilst at the same time, leaving you breathless with the thrilling cinematography that is provided throughout. The launch sequence and the journey to the new worlds, it is all riveting, on the edge of your seat entertainment. Along with the magnificent cinematography and excellent directing, frequent Nolan collaborator Hans Zimmer once again weaved his magic and produced a terrific score to accompany the film. The action scenes are accompanied by sweeping music that adds a great level of intensity to what’s occurring on screen.

Many great directors pick out the perfect actors for the roles they write, and Nolan is no exception. Fresh from his Oscar success, Matthew McConaughey is on hand to lead this voyage, and he does so in great style. While his accent is hard to grasp at times, you empathise with him and his struggles with his daughter and his determination to save her and his family that are trapped on a dying Earth. Anne Hathaway also gives an excellent performance as one of the fellow astronauts on their mission. Child actresses can sometimes be hit and miss on such big blockbuster occasions. Yet on this occasion Mackenzie Foy was on stellar form as Cooper’s daughter Murph. Her emotion and connection with her father is felt, you care about her relationship with Cooper and want to see them reunited. This continues when Murph has grown up and is played equally brilliantly by Jessica Chastain. Unfortunately, Cooper’s son played by Casey Affleck is left somewhat underdeveloped, as there is no connection there with his character, in comparison to that of Murph. His son is somewhat left on the sidelines, yet the emotional bond between Murph and her father drives the film, and does so to incredible proportions.

One minor fault in that the film’s run time was maybe just a bit too long, and could have potentially wrapped up sooner. However in this world of film-making, an original film that is not a sequel, or a franchise is rare and Nolan has once again brought an incredible experience to the big screen. Brains, beauty and incredible story telling, It is almost like Gravity meets 2001: A Space Odessy . In a year that has brought us some remarkable films, Interstellar has taken off and landed among the best films of the year, and is an out of this world addition to the remarkable filmography of Christopher Nolan.