For Your Consideration: Interstellar

It may seem like a bit of stretch that, even before Interstellar, Christopher Nolan has six directing credits in IMDB’s top 110 (The Prestige, you’ll be amused to discover, is apparently the 51st best film ever made). Even though half of those were chalked up by a single bat, a new Nolan simply can’t be ignored – neither by IMDB fanboys or the Academy.

Interstellar (2014)

To hear that Interstellar is an epic-lengthed philosophical, inter-deminesional science-fiction flick set, for the most part, in space, is to know that it is an obvious fit into the genre that Nolan seems to have single-handedly invented – the arthouse blockbuster.

In this one – surprisingly only his ninth film – he imagines a not-too-distant-future earth on its last legs. Wheat and other crops are a thing of the past, having been smote by the same dustbowls that also ravage young lungs. A concern on two fronts for Coop (Hollywood’s man of the moment, Matty Mac), a farmer and single father to two teenagers.

He also used to be a hotshot military pilot and so the obvious choice to man a spaceship (I said obvious, alright) as part of a NASA expedition to find a new habitat for mankind. If GCSE astronomy taught us anything, it’s that there are no such planets anywhere near our patch of the galaxy. But luckily, as you’ll recall from GCSE quantum physics, we can always find the nearest wormhole and dive through that to hopefully find a conveniently located human-friendly planet in the neighbouring dimension.

So off go Coop, Dr Brand (Anne Hathaway…I know, a woman!) and skeleton crew to pop over to the other dimension and see whether any of the 12 NASA voyagers who set off 10 years previously had any joy in finding humanity’s swish new pad.

It’s natural to judge Interstellar within the paradigm of Nolan’s back catalogue, particularly Inception – it more than matches its forbearers remarkable ambition. But its even naturaler to judge it against last Oscar season’s equally galactic Gravity; that all mouth and no trouser, handsome berk of a special effects frenzy. One of the things to like about Nolan’s space flick, is – in contrast to Cuarón – how sparing it is with the show-stopping effects. The first few times Coop’s crew blast in to space, there’s little more fanfare than the standard descending countdown. Then they’re in space. He makes us wait before spunking his load, and so the effects orgasm when it comes is that much more potent.

Also unlike last year’s Best Director winner Alfonso, Nolan ensures that there’s solid emotional connection between his intrepid travellers and their nearest and dearest back on stinking, no good Earth. Not only is Coop determined not to make orphans of his children, and Brand wants to make her dad (Michael Caine’s NASA genius and project mastermind…with a secret) proud, they’re mission to quite literally save the world seems justified and crucial.

But, my God, don’t they take a long time to set this up. The last thing I need to see in a sic-fi bonanza, is Matthew McConaughey at a parents’ evening. And its glacial pace is Interstellar’s major drawback. The film posits that in some dimensions, time could be a physical element, and if that’s correct Interstellar‘s three hour running time would be an oversized Belgian toaster; way too long and full of waffle. Nolan was either massively chuffed with the astrophysicists he employed as advisors, or wanted to get his money’s worth from them, because it seems that every piece of jargon that they uttered made it in to his script, when so much of it should have disappeared in to one of the black holes that they so love to harp on about.

And it doesn’t help matters that so much of the technical detail is even more far-fetched when coming out of McConaughey’s chops. As we saw in True Detective, he’s become the best in the business at spouting pseudo-cryptic fatalistic babble. But put The Brief History of Time in his hands, and he just doesn’t convince. Especially when you throw in such absurd phrases as “I’ll just swing this spaceship past that neutron“. It’s difficult to know whether the actors or the Nolan brothers are to blame for dialogue that suffers from the drab portent and sheer ridiculous in even measure.

If the length and script are difficult to forgive by any standard, the success of the film’s philosophical heart will vary from punter to punter. The eco-friendly messaging that it is up to our generation to act now in order to salvage the world for our children’s, children’s children is worthy, if a little cackhanded and simplistic.

But it’s Nolan’s predilection to resort to sic-fi cliche that is the most frustrating thing about Interstellar. The classic solar flare. Creepily human robots with an appetite for betrayal. And he openly admits to directly nicking stuff from 2001: A Space Odyssey. This frankly seems odd. To want to mimic one of the most successful proponents of the genre’s history seems dense – he only goes to expose the inadequacies of his own work. Like me quoting Roger Ebert reviews.

But it’s not just Nolan who’s on the pilfer. The increasingly annoying Hans Zimmer splices plenty of Strauss-esque (Richard, mostly) chords in amongst his all-too-familiar blare. Yet you can bank that he’ll score one of the Oscar nominations that will inevitably rain down upon the technical crew. McConaughey and Hathaway will likely be in with shots at their second wins too, and Christopher Nolan and his film will probably have sufficient momentum to bag nods in the other big categories.

But the sum of this Interstellar‘s parts should stop it from ever winning any of the big prizes…whether in this dimension or any other.

Interstellar; 2014; Dir: Christopher Nolan; Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine; 169 mins; 6/10; Probable nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Matthew McConaughey), Best Cinematography (Hoyte Van Hoytema), Best Editing (Lee Smith) Best Original Score (Hans Zimmer), Best Visual Effects, Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing; Possible nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Anne Hathaway), Best Original Screenplay (Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan)