Interstellar

Christopher Nolan has once again directed some very great cinema with his latest film Interstellar. For me as a cinema fan, the latest child from the Inception and Dark Knight director is a true feast. For me as a cinema critic, on the other hand, it proves to be a real challenge. After all, how are you supposed to write about a film that has the most intense impact when the audience knows as little as possible about the plot and themes covered in the film beforehand? Minor spoilers, despite all efforts, unfortunately cannot be avoided unless I were to end the review at this point. But, of course, the significant twists will not be revealed here, and some aspects of the story will only be assessed in hints.

Interstellar is set in a not-too-distant future where Earth's natural resources have been depleted and humans face imminent extinction. After the death of his wife, former pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a farmer trying to provide his two children, Murph (Mackenzie Foy) and Tom (Timothée Chalamet), with something resembling a glimmer of hope for a better future. But he must realize that this hope is unfounded. So he joins an extremely risky and top-secret NASA research project to search for a new home for humanity on the other side of a wormhole. It's a journey into the unknown that could take a few years or decades. In the worst case scenario, Cooper would never return to Earth and never see his children again. But as long as there is a chance that humanity can continue and Murph and Tom have a future, he is willing to take the risk. But what awaits him beyond our galaxy runs counter to all his expectations.

That, in broad strokes, is the initial situation of Interstellar, set up in about the first 45 minutes of its nearly 3 hour running time. In this part of the film, Nolan also relies more heavily on a mixture of scientifically verified realism and very human emotionality. With his usual fascinating imagery and a very spherical soundtrack by Hans Zimmer, who here relies more on organ sounds, Nolan creates a very special atmosphere that is hard to resist. And even if it can already be suspected here that the father-daughter story threatens to drift a little into the kitschy, there is no doubt in the first third that Nolan has created another masterpiece here.

This impression is reinforced as soon as Cooper and his research crew cross the wormhole. The imagery that Nolan and his team have brought to the screen here is simply mesmerizing, and you literally want to lose yourself in this excursion into an alien galaxy. But even when the action shifts back to Earth and follows Cooper's now grown children, portrayed by Jessica Chastain and Casey Affleck, the story and its visuals remain gripping, moving and fascinating. However, here it is already increasingly difficult to follow the scientific explanations. At this point at the latest, viewers should simply let themselves be carried along by the emotional side of the story and not question the rest too much. Because that could significantly diminish the further enjoyment of Interstellar.

Because more and more it becomes clear that love is the central theme of the film. Sure, there are some great special effects, some extremely exciting and also action-packed moments, and a lot of scientific babble. But in the end, it's all about love, with Cooper's for his children, and especially Murph, naturally taking center stage. Nolan therefore also takes a lot of time for quiet, emotional moments that stand in stark contrast to the action overkill of The Dark Knight Rises. In the finale, the whole thing threatens to overshoot the mark a bit, and viewers who were expecting a lot of action and for whom emotional cinema is sheer horror might find little to like in the final act. However, if you're into what Nolan is trying to tell here and also let yourself fall emotionally, you'll probably be very moved by this film by the end, as I was.

Sure, Interstellar is not a perfect film. At times the music is mixed a bit too intrusive, there are also small lengths towards the end and the mixture of poignant emotional cinema and the usual for Nolan claim of a certain anchoring in reality only works to a certain extent, especially in the last third. Nevertheless, the film is great cinema on several levels. Visually, Interstellar is a masterpiece that absolutely must be experienced on the big screen. The story is simply very, very beautiful and the actors quite outstanding. In the end, the film really only suffers from audience expectation, as many expected nothing less than another groundbreaking milestone in modern cinema from Nolan after Inception or Dark Knight. And as great as Interstellar is, the work has just not become such a milestone. Therefore, if you can lower your expectations a little bit and get involved in emotional cinema, you will get one of the most impressive cinematic experiences of the year. Absolutely worth seeing!!!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp