The Beautiful Gibberish of Interstellar

Interstellar. Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

I remember in 2014 the hype for Interstellar was huge. Nolan’s films are always shrouded in mystery and anticipation, and of course his past success had made him something of a venerated film God to many which juiced public expectations for the film. Interstellar, starring Mathew McConaughey during the full bloom of that rather strange period known as the McConaissance, promised to be another ambitious, original film cloaked in the trappings of high art and dense philosophy.

The film, another operatic sci-fi thriller, is set in the near future and it deals with many weighty issues and themes but paramount among them is basically the nature of human civilization and whether it can survive its own self-destructive tendencies. And the answer is that it can. This all sounds fine in theory. Except that the Nolans decided the best narrative mechanism for explaining humanity’s resilience was through the use of an inter-dimensional book case that allowed McConaughey to harness the power of love and send messages across time and space. If you were thinking of ways to wrap up your epic space saga about future humans leaving clues to civilizational survival in the fabric of space-time, an inter-dimensional book case powered by love would probably be, like, way down on the list.

But, if you had been paying attention to Nolan’s previous films, this shockingly stupid ending would have come as little surprise. Nolan’s films have always lived and died on interesting ideas beautifully presented. But they’ve never had much thematic depth. The characters have never been that well developed, despite what Nolan himself believes. That’s not why people go to see Christopher Nolan films. Nolan’s films are good precisely because they play around with really interesting ideas, and use innovative narrative structures and cool visual trickery to do so. They are glossy and fun and interesting. But they are not particularly deep or meaningful.

Interstellar is what happens when one of the most talented visual wonks in the industry indulges in his own hype and tries to reach for the stars - literally. With Interstellar he tried to make a movie that captured the bigness of time and space and humanity and love, but ended up putting all of it in a cosmic book case because he was outmatched by his own ambition. The film looks great. It is visually masterful. The attention to scientific detail is nice (though, not as sound as all that - if a planet has such strong gravity that it slows the passing of time, then how could you reach escape velocity without using a lot more thrust than their ship is capable of? But I digress).

I liked it well enough. And I admire and respect the ambition to make daring, original films in an often creatively bankrupt Hollywood system. But it promised more than it could deliver, and those who were hoodwinked by it were likely also taken in by the supposed depth and complexity of Inception and the Dark Knight. So when Tenet eventually does make it to the big screen, my expectations will be grounded in reality. I will be expecting a twisty, inventive thriller with some interesting ideas tied together by awesome visuals and set pieces. And nothing more.

PS. I do wonder sometimes if it’s really Jonathan Nolan who is coming up with all the really bad ideas. Look at the way he butchered Season 2 of Westworld when given the chance. Ah, well. Perhaps only the inter-dimensional book cases of love know the answer to that puzzle.