An epic journey by a master film-maker will leave you suspended

Rating: 10/10 (16 November 2014)

Time, in Christopher Nolan's complex world has always been an essential element of his stories and none more so than in the mind-bending 'Inception'. Now, in yet another masterpiece of path-breaking cinema, Nolan brings astrophysics to the masses and deals with space-time concepts that are at the forefront of the final attempt to save the human race from extinction. 'Interstellar' is an intelligent film that takes you through an epic journey of human will, emotion and sacrifice against the backdrop of some of the most stunning visuals ever witnessed on IMAX.
A worldwide blight has wiped out all crops except corn and capitalism has taken a back seat to conservation. The Earth is now a ball of dust with frequent haboobs storming through towns. A former test pilot for NASA, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), has been forced to take up corn farming to sustain his family of 2 kids of which, Murph (Mackenzie Foy) shares his zeal for science. Not surprisingly, she believes that her room has a ghost that is trying to reveal something to her and after a dust-storm fills it completely, signs pointing to coordinates of a secret location far from their home emerge and they take off in a quest to investigate. NASA, which had been shut down decades ago, still existed at that secret location with Professor Brand (Michael Caine). This is when it all gets interesting. Either Cooper figures a way to cultivate more crops to feed his kids and others or he executes the Plan A or B of Professor Brand that will take him close to Saturn's orbit where a wormhole will open paths to a possible new home for mankind. He prepares Cooper to confront the reality that the solution to man's problems may not be in our own solar system. That he had to leave it with a group of scientists on an Interstellar mission that would save mankind's future.
Months and years go by as they journey to Saturn and subsequently into the other galaxy through the wormhole. Among the possible inhabitable planets that were named after the astronauts who discovered them was Miller, with its surface covered by shallow water. Due to its proximity to the Gargantua black hole, the gravitational pull caused time dilation that converted their hours on the planet to 23 Earth years. A seemingly shattered Cooper sits through the playback of all the messages he had received from his kids back on Earth in what could be among the most brilliantly directed emotional scenes with Matthew providing a deeply realistic performance sitting through the agony of his lost years. With fuel running low and vital mission time lost, the crew collectively choose to fly to Mann's icy planet which again had darkness of a different order. With an evil twist in their mission and a narrow escape from total devastation of the Endurance spacecraft, they subsequently go for Plan B on Edmunds' planet but with a stopover at Gargantua where TARS, the A.I. robot and Cooper separately launch into the black hole in a bid to learn about singularity.
The dynamics of a strained relationship that resulted from a father's abrupt and uncertain departure from his beloved daughter carries through to adulthood and the coldness of Jessica Chastain's message to Cooper is where the audience invests at an emotional level. Mackenzie Foy portrays a distraught daughter who was left behind in a refreshingly natural manner. Anne Hathaway seems out of place and sidetracked sometimes. Michael Caine looks and sounds as he did in any of Nolan's films as he maintains his consistent sincerity that makes you just want to go along with his conviction in interstellar travel. Jessica Chastain is cold yet convincing. But it is the True Detective, Matthew McConaughey who is the soul of this film's powerful narrative. He not only portrays the more emotional aspects of being a father convincingly, but also showcases a strong, determined side of being an engineer in mind.
Jonathan Nolan has always been a remarkable contribution to his brother's vision and while the brothers provided the much needed emotional edge, full of twists through the Interstellar journey, it couldn't have been as intriguing without the much needed collaboration with co-producer and space-time expert Kip Thorne. The film is ground-breaking cinema that takes the general audience through an inter-galactic journey that is overwhelmingly gorgeous in every scene. The terrifyingly large yet common haboobs, the space shuttle launch with the theater shaking sound, the journey through the wormhole, the tidal waves on Miller's planet, the frozen clouds on Mann's and the thrilling docking sequence on Endurance are dazzling visuals created by Double Negative's team. Then there's Hoyte Van Hoytema's cinematography ('Her'), that captures the raw beauty of an arid Earth during dust storms, the drone chase through corn fields, the vastness of Miller's water planet, the frigid conditions at Mann's planet and even sequences of just portraying the expressions of his actors. Add to it all, the inspiring score from Hans Zimmer brings back memories his best works.
As much as Christopher Nolan would like to toy with your mind and fascinate you with the prospect of Interstellar travel, this is his most emotional and personal film. Nolan makes us pay attention to the simplified details his characters share about complex theories and he then rewards us with visuals of Endurance's journey through a wormhole, the emptiness of Gargantua and it's glowing rings, the wet and frozen planets and of course, the fifth dimension at event horizon. The film's 2hr 50 min duration doesn't seem as long even in Earth time and in the end, in his signature style of partly unraveled, partly withheld culmination of ideas, Christopher Nolan will leave you mentally suspended in his world like no other film maker can and you will still be discussing its plot elements days after Cooper's Interstellar journey.

9.410101 on a scale of 1-10.