EntertainmentMoviesSci-Fi MoviesInterstellar10 years after its release, it’s clear I was wrong about Interstellar – it’s Christopher Nolan at his absolute bestWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
EntertainmentMoviesSci-Fi MoviesInterstellar10 years after its release, it’s clear I was wrong about Interstellar – it’s Christopher Nolan at his absolute bestWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)
If you’ll allow me for a moment, I want to take you back to 2014, the year of Ellen DeGeneres' Oscar selfie, the Ice Bucket Challenge and – yes – Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic Interstellar.
As I sat down in anticipation of Nolan’s latest, I wondered what was about to unfold before me. I had mostly steered clear of the marketing, with onlyits initial trailer(which reins in the focus to show a ravaged earth and a natural phenomenon closing in on Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper) as my guide.
Almost three hours later, I left the cinema feeling cold, bemused, and, ultimately, disappointed. Despite its scope and outstanding IMAX visuals, I thought Interstellar was too long, overly sentimental, and – following on from the fit-to-burst The Dark Knight Rises two years prior – left me wondering if Nolan had lost his magic touch.
At 20, I barely gave Interstellar a second thought. Re-discovering it afresh 10 years later at 30, thanks in part to being more acutely aware of the passages of time, I see it now for what it truly is: Christopher Nolan’s best, most emotionally affecting work.
Starmaker
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)
Revolving around a dying Earth and the efforts to save its people, former NASA pilot Cooper sets off for the stars in Interstellar alongside Dr. Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway) in search of more hospitable planets – but must leave his young daughter Murph behind.
Most Nolan films have big ideas, big emotions, and big set-pieces – but almost never all three. Inception comes close, though its mind-bending premise, spinning-top ending, and treatment of Marion Cotillard’s Mal leaves the dream heist thriller feeling slightly less satisfying than desired. Interstellar’s greatest triumph is that it achieves all of these.
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“Interstellar came from a very personal place,” Nolan says in Tom Shone’s essential book The Nolan Variations. There is a reason, after all, why the working title for Interstellar is ‘Flora’s Letter’, a reference to his then-11-year-old daughter.
From that starting point, Interstellar transcends galaxies and takes in all manner of unknowable and hostile environments but, at its very core, remains steadfast in its emotional message – Cooper is fighting to save what’s waiting for him back home on his ranch.
That’s why Interstellar’s big set-piece hits so hard. In past and future Nolan movies, the director would do everything from crashinga real Boeing 747to flipping rooms literally upside down for his bombastic sequences. Here, the big moment lands with a similar thud – but it’s a gut punch rather than an explosion.
Encompassing that singularly intense loss is hard enough but, thanks in part to Nolan’s personal touch wringing out every last drop of feeling, McConaughey delivers an achingly beautiful and devastating response to those missing years. Cillian Murphy’s lead Oppenheimer performance rightly receives plaudits, but it doesn’t have a moment like this. Coop isn’t just grieving what has been lost; he’s grieving the uniquely complex feeling as he realizes he wasn’t able to grow old alongside Murph.
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)
The emotion and emotion-laden set-pieces are strong enough to catapult this to the top of any Nolan fan’s rankings, but it’s the director’s playful experimentation with space and time that really seals the deal.
So, yes, hands up – I was wrong. Interstellar is Christopher Nolan’s finest film to date. In a body of work that encompasses the best superhero movie ever made,a Best Picture winner, and a daring Hollywood debut in Memento, that takes some doing. But Nolan aimed for the stars and succeeded in his mission. It just took me a decade to realize that.
For more, check out our overall rankings of thebest Nolan movies, plus all the latestmovie release datesyou have to look forward to.
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