Movie Review: Interstellar

Interstellar (2014)

Four and half Stars out of Five

Cooper: Matthew McConaughey

Brand: Anne Hathaway

Murph: Jessica Chastain

Director/Writer: Christopher Nolan

Writer: Jonathan Nolan

Cinematography Director:  Hoyte Van Hoytema

Music: Hans Zimmer

Christopher Nolan has consistently shown himself willing to take on difficult-to-tell stories (the reverse time flow of Memento is a good example). As the director and co-writer with his younger brother, Jonathan, Nolan has found with Interstellar an incredibly challenging story to tell. If one focuses on the science and time sequence issues, the story might be as confusing as 2001: A Space Odyssey. On the other hand, if one instead focuses on the father/daughter tale, it is a wonderfully emotional story than anyone can follow and appreciate.

The story is of a future Earth (with oddly contemporary trucks and cars) where a “blight” is systematically destroying the Earth’s food crops and converting the atmosphere to an oxygen-free version of today’s air. We are introduced to Cooper played by Matthew McConaughey and his immediate family, which includes a pre-adolescent daughter, Murph (Mackenzie Foy). These early scenes are often oddly comic in dialog but deeply sinister in foreshadowing. Borrowing sequences from Ken Burns’ documentary on the American dust-bowl, the viewer is shown that the Earth and her inhabitants have no future in this second dust-bowl.

Through a largely unbelievable story line Cooper is engaged by NASA to pilot a vessel to Saturn, enter a worm hole and venture out to three prospective new worlds where Humankind might begin again. There are logical inconsistencies in setting this stage, and the physics (despite being advised by Cal Tech’s Kip Thorne) require on several occasions much from the viewer, but then this is fiction, science fiction, and one must make allowances for this kind of tale.

The stage is a fantastic one, but like television’s The Walking Dead, the viewer is allowed to take in situations and people on this stage that are completely believable in this context and to take part in several scenes of overwhelming emotional intensity. This has always been for me the hallmark, even the raison d’etre for good speculative fiction, whether of a scientific or fantasy nature. That is to say create a stage where the story-teller can give the audience a tale that will involve them emotionally and inform them intellectually; and ideally tell such emotions and ideas that simply cannot be told without that fantastic stage.

The Nolan’s in Interstellar have created a story that makes intimate and completely requisite use of time dilation, of Einstein/Hawking attempts at a theory of everything (and of course, they get one – hey, it’s Hollywood), and to involve the audience in the effects of the former, and the necessity of the latter to save Mankind. Such a fantastic stage this is. And yet, because of the time dilation effects of immense gravity near a black hole, we are treated to a story of life-long love between a father and a daughter that simply cannot be told in any other way.

The acting by McConaughey and Chastain as the adult Murph are as in last year’s Texas Buyer’s Club for McConaughey and 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty for Chastain are easily Oscar-worthy performances. Indeed, this movie is filled with superb acting: John Lithgow as Coop’s father-in-law, Michael Caine as Brand’s father, Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway as fellow astronauts. But for me the highlight scene involved McConaughey reacting to a message from home – it was almost too painful to watch for its intensity.

Another great aspect of using the science fiction stage was the incredible special effects depicting the worm hole and black hole (though I must say, some of the space ship exterior scenes seemed oddly of a lower caliber). The editing near the end of the movie and the music score by Hans Zimmer throughout were of very high quality. The use in particular of an absence of sound for various space scenes to help give a feel for space versus the soaring music for other scenes of great emotional intensity were often spectacular.

I loved this movie and wanted so badly to give it five stars, but alas the science and logical inconsistencies won’t let me. But I did love this film and want everyone to see it. I’ll write elsewhere of the problematic parts that keep occurring to me after walking out of the theater.

Les Miserables

Les Misérables

2012
Musical/Drama
4.5 stars out of 5

I love musicals. I have since I was a child and first saw Oklahoma! From it through at least one Elvis quasi-musical (State Fair with Ann Margaret) to Moulin Rouge,  I wonder if I have seen one that I hated (Grease comes to mind; sorry). Les Misérables occupies for me a rare position - easily one of the best pictures I have seen in the past five years.

The story of Jean Valjean as expressed in Les Misérables is based originally on the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo and also on the musical theatre productions that go back to 1980 Paris. The salvation of Jean Valjean, his pursuit by the tortured Inspector Javert and the stories of Fantine and Cossette provide more than sufficient story material just on the surface level. You could also follow the movie for its depiction of how desperate the plight of the poor were in early 19^th century France, and the indifference of almost everyone as an allegory to modern America, and you would not be displeased.

However, there is an even deeper layer to the story, and it is best revealed in the first act. There one is nearly overcome with emotion as you watch the love and devotion of the local Monsignor when he forgives Valjean’s thievery, and thus starts the wheels of redemption that eventually saves Valjean from himself, not to mention from Javert and society at large. This scene is followed very shortly by what I consider the highlight of the entire movie: the step by step degradation of Fantine culminating with her incredible song of dreams lost. The other notable part of the story involve the moral ascent of Valjean after he re-covers his soul; especially when this is contrasted to the moral descent of Javert as he clings to the law and his tight walk along a moral precipice.

The story arc, theme and technical artistry aside (watch the camera angles of the boat being dragged into the not so dry dry-docks or consider that all the singing was recorded live), the acting and singing are for the most part just superb. Both Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean and Anne Hathaway as Fantine sing and act at the highest levels. Meanwhile Isabelle Allen as young Cossette and Samantha Barks as the adult Éponine sing superbly. And even though I usually cringe when I see another love triangle, in this movie I get to see Éponine, the adult Cossette and Marius (played by Amanda Seyfried and  Eddie Redmayne, respectively) sing their way through it, and it makes it more than watchable, it makes it a work of art.

To be sure there were things I would have wished done differently: chief amongst them, I would have re-written the movie to remove the discordant comic elements and inadequate singing of Sacha Baron Cohen as Thénardier. I did like having Helena Bonham Carter in the role of Madam Thénardier in order to provide the dark counterpoint to young Cossette’s beautifully sung “Castle on a Cloud”. And though criticized by many, I also like using Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert. Yes, you can discuss his vocal limitations. However, his solo atop the rooftops of Paris as he sings and walks the knife edge between life and his own doomed redemption,  and then once again this time above the Seine, Crowe proves his worth for the role. His dramatic abilities and fair to good singing makes for a more than competent Javert.

From the amazing opening to the lyrically described triangle to the tragic but redemptive ending, I loved this movie, and strongly recommend it to anyone even mildly interested in musicals.