Film Chat - Interstellar
For obvious reasons, spoiler warnings for an 11 year old film.
I rewatched Interstellar last night - the only previous time watching it was during a flight to Japan in 2019, so its safe to say I've never had a the proper experience (barring the immersive turbulence during the docking sequence).
It's one of those films I felt a bit apprehensive about rewatching at home rather than a cinema, but put it on to fill an evening rather than just sitting at my computer. My TV is pretty good and, while the living room doesn't have blackout blinds, I timed it really well so that the sun set around an hour in - I got to soak into the atmospherics once the plot gets off Earth and was fully immersed for the 2nd half.
I really liked it! To be fair I already did, but it's held up I think! A couple of quibbles before I talk about the stuff I liked:
- The aspect ratio changes throughout were jarring and felt kinda cheap to me? It felt like one of those Amazon Video ads where they have a 21:9 frame but oooo the actors are filling the full height, how immersive! Bollocks. I understand it's because they used both IMAX and 35mm? Pack it in, Nolan.
- The crucial plot conversations are a bit of a name soup. "Edmunds or Mann? What about Miller? Where's Doyle?" These are crucial scenes to set the stakes and I found them a bit annoying - the gist gets across, but it's clumsy imo.
- A lot of the Newtonian physics just feels off - the big "gotta leave something behind" doesn't really match my understanding of orbital mechanics but I'm open to being wrong about that. The black hole stuff is obviously very suss for narrative purposes but that was never really my wheelhouse.
- Brand's emotional arc is a bit overly subtle in the first half. Even on a rewatch, the big "she loves Edmunds" thing is a bit out of nowhere and feels more like a way to shoehorn the "what if love is a fundamental force" thing - I feel it could have been done a little better. I think it ties into the name soup thing - when Cooper asks TARS about Brand and Edmunds, I just assumed he was talking about Doyle because I hadn't got comfortable with the various names.
But yeah, that's small stuff! Really enjoyed it as a whole piece.
In particular, I found Mann so delightfully pathetic. Just pitiful in the extreme while he monologues - brilliant work. Especially his bit about "no man has endured what I have" or whatever while Romilly is standing right there. Awesome.
It remains visually stunning a decade on - films really hit that "good enough" point a while back at the blockbuster budget, they just needed this level of direction and inspiration.
The music is obviously good - it's a Nolan-Zimmer joint, it's gonna be solid. I think I credit it more for being insteresting than affecting though - it was only really towards the end (when the totally had me) that it really got to me.
I think the whole unveiling of the 5D causal chain of events is really nicely executed - it doesn't feel overly Nolan-y, and everything in there actually serves a purpose. It's not just a red herring that the ghost both directs them towards NASA and also tells him to stay, it's crucial to Murph's understanding and trust of it.
Overall though it's just a thoroughly effective and affecting film.
It would arguably be a massive fuckup if a film about climate catastrophe and the inexorable arrow of time wasn't affecting, but that doesn't diminish Interstellar. It solidly deserves its status in the canon of "good movies."
p.s. I love the possibility that the ending presents - that Brand watched Cooper fall into a black hole, the purest form of oblivion the universe can offer, and then like a month? later he shows up in a stolen spaceship like "oops i fell but it's no big. my daughter says hey btw"