Just back from seeing “Interstellar”. An impressive film! Perhaps I should better wait a bit before writing the review. On the other hand, why not just when I am still full of it?
At the opening titles I noticed that it took two Nolans two write this story, but the two also worked together on “Memento“, “The Prestige” and two Batman films. What you first hear about the new Nolan is how complex it is. Actually I think it is not more complex than “Inception” and having seen that film a couple of times the story is original, but not hard to follow. “Interstellar” shows an earth of which expiration date has run out and NASA is secretly trying to find a way to save the human kind on another planet. The search involves a worm-hole that seekers are sent through to find an inhabitable planet. The concept of the worm-hole allowed Nolan to play with the concept of time, since the gravity of the worm-hole also affects time. Also time is seen as a dimension and added to this is a fifth dimension.
The first three quarters you will hear a lot of scientific theories about gravity, time, worm-holes, etc. Then in the last quarter the film takes the turn that probably leaves a lot of people clueless. I must say that here the film becomes both brilliantly found, but also rather forced in complexity and not entirely credible. Yet, the story makes a wonderfull circle that may not be completely unexpected, but well done.
There is quite a bit of drama in the film. The cold, scientific facts are balanced heavily by human emotions of the love of a father for his children, the drama of loosing a loved one, lies and the like. There are quite some tear-jerking scenes that actually work.
All in all “Interstellar” is an impressive film and certainly a worthy follow-up for “Inception”. Contrary to “Inception” there is no necessity to see this film on the big screen (however some scenes will look better), but I do recommend to put this title somewhere high up your wish-list when you like space spectacle and especially when you like the work of Christopher Nolan.
