Interstellar

I heard about Interstellar a little over five years ago. It was still a Steven Spielberg project back then, about which very little was known. A science fiction film based on theoretical physicist Kip Thorne’s work, that’s as much as I could gather at the time. And it was enough to make my thoughts fly in anticipation ever since.

Science - and astronomy, in particular - has been a passion of mine from a very young age. I watched in awe every documentary about space I happened to lay my eyes upon and read every book about the moon, the planets and the universe that I could find at home. I’ve never read that much science fiction, though. But there was this one book, which had been sitting in my parents’ bookshelf for quite a while, that caught my attention by the early nineties. It was called Contact and the author had a rather familiar name - Carl Sagan.

This was a watershed moment for me. For here was the embodiment of so many of the things I dreamed about, so many of the things I longed for in a piece of (science-) fiction literature (or cinema, for that matter). Solid, beautifully explained science, with just the right amount of fiction to keep it believable; a credible and properly paced narrative; the great themes of alien intelligence and humanity’s place in the cosmos; the eternal struggle between science, politics and faith; the unknown, treated with the respect it deserves.

A few years later, a film based on the novel was made and while it was, inevitably, a compressed and slightly modified version of the latter, it managed to convey the visual grandeur of the original, while preserving a credible narrative that encapsulated the same struggle between science, politics and faith. Things happened faster, for sure, but not in an implausible kind of way. Needless to say, it was largely ignored ever since and few treasure it fondly in their minds and hearts (like I do).

And that brings us back to Interstellar. In the meantime, Christopher Nolan took over the project (which I didn’t find too disquieting, having loved Inception), Matthew McConaughey joined the cast (an actor I’d recently begun to deeply admire and a rather interesting coincidence, having also starred in Contact) and I attended the film premiere, at last, a few days ago. So I should be thrilled, right? Well, not quite.

While the most visually striking moments of Contact (the film) are relatively short and climactic, allowing time for the narrative to develop through conceivable steps, Interstellar suffers from the same disorder that appears to plague most Hollywood productions from the last decade or so - the dumbing down of the viewer and the prevalence of visual action over narrative, thus making it implausible, disconnected, devoid of mystery and sometimes just plain ridiculous. It’s disrespectful to the viewer as an intelligent human being, gifted with imagination and reasoning. It’s disrespectful to cinema as an art form. And we’re seeing too much of it lately.

Interstellar is astounding and beautiful in all that it gets right. But there’s simply too much that it gets wrong, to keep it above mainstream mediocrity. The excessive americanisms; the terrible dialogue (scientists don’t talk about fringe physics as if they were ten-year-olds); the maudlin sentimentality, which pervades the very conclusion of the film; the ridiculous narrative leaps the script takes every so often (a three-hour film has a tremendous amount of space to breathe; you definitely don’t need to rush things); the absence of a lingering sliver of mystery that would make us think and talk about it for years to come... I could go on and on.

And that’s why it bothers me so much. Because it had everything it needed to become a masterpiece of science fiction, an instant classic. There’s a magnificent reflection on mankind and the time it has left on this planet; a wonderful story about being a father (and being away as a father); some of the most breathtaking views of space ever committed to film; Kip Thorne as a scientific advisor (and executive producer) granting enough credibility to the sci-fi fundamentals. And all of it is marred by lazy writing and the unapologetic need to keep things light, accessible and self-contained. I wanted to love this film so much that I’m desperately trying to find things to like about it. Maybe I will find them, on a second or third viewing, but I don’t hold much hope. I feel profoundly let down.

Update: I saw the film again last night. I feel a little bit more at peace with it, but my overall standpoint remains. I understand where it wants to go, where its ambition lies, but it saddens me that it fails miserably in its choice of narrative approach. It’s an awesome ride but, intellectually, it stands just a little above your average blockbuster. The underlying themes are fascinating, yet they feel like mysteries wrapped in transparent foil - in the end, there is nothing left to wonder.