Kathleen is writing this review because we can’t stop arguing about Interstellar almost ten years after its release. Dylan says it’s Nolan’s greatest film and defends every melodramatic pause and pseudoscientific climax as if his livelihood depends on loving Nolan’s overreliance on practical effects and shooting everything in IMAX. Max says it’s pompous emo bullshit posing as actual science fiction and eye rolls every time someone brings up the “love is just another dimension” scene. John gets angry every time someone points out how they completely ignored real physics. Quinn thinks the movie has heart, finally showing Nolan capable of depicting emotion rather than cold, hard logic.
My feeling on Interstellar is that everyone on our staff is partly right. Nolan tried his hardest to balance the cold calculating pseudointellectual nature of his usual films with raw human emotion. The stakes of Interstellar span solar systems, yet its core is the relationship between a father and daughter. The themes touch on legacy and our responsibility to future generations, but it’s told through the eyes of a man who may never see his children grow up. Interstellar alienates viewers because it falls short of these grand ambitions and mistakes, but it redeems itself with scenes of genuine emotional heft.
Interstellar succeeds and fails so often because Nolan was reaching for something most blockbuster films aren’t willing to attempt. For every three science fiction movies that tackle grand philosophical ideas, one takes our emotions hostage with teenagers falling in love. Nolan decided to blend the two with giant mushrooms and elephants the size of small planets.
| Director | Christopher Nolan |
| Year Released | 2014 |
| Runtime | 169 min (IMDb) |
| Genre | Hard Science Fiction, Space Opera |
| Budget | $165 million (Box Office Mojo) |
| Box Office | $681 million worldwide (Wikipedia) |
| Our Rating | 7/10 |
Interstellar landed with a Metascore of 74 (Metacritic) and a Tomatometer score of 73 percent (Rotten Tomatoes). Audiences were kinder, rating it 8.7/10 on IMDb (IMDb). Interstellar was released right when space exploration became sexy to Hollywood again, riding the wave of newfound interest in actual exoplanets and discoveries combined with legitimate fears about climate change. Nolan wanted to make a science fiction film that actually cared about getting the science right but didn’t sacrifice feeling in the process, even when the two came into conflict.
Love and Physics: Finding Feeling In Nolan’s Films
Let’s talk about emotions for a minute, because Interstellar wants you to care about these characters. We’ve complained plenty about Nolan’s inability to capture genuine emotion in his prior films. Take Christopher and Alma in Following, or Cobb and Mal. Their relationship spans years of storytelling yet never completely convinces. Compare to Annie and Jake in Before Sunrise. These characters have a single night to convey all the joy and heartbreak of falling in love, and they achieve more in 107 minutes than Nolan usually does in three hours.
Nolan may have finally found his humanity in dusty old Matthew McConaughey. Every decision he makes, from splitting up his team to boarding the Edmund in complete defiance of orders, comes back to Murph. She’s the reason he becomes a pilot. She’s the reason he braves extraterrestrial antibodies to save his crew. His final act of severing the end of his robotic arm to graft it onto Murph doesn’t make sense from a scientific perspective, but it encapsulates everything we know about Cooper as a father.
When we learn Cooper has been watching his children age and die in real-time thanks to relativistic time dilation, we empathise with him. He’s only been gone for a few hours whilst his son grew up, had children of his own, lost hope. Murph aged from young child to adult to the same age as her father in that room. The science fiction element allows for genuine emotional truth that wouldn’t land in a “realistic” drama.
The movie understands how foolish love can seem from an intellectual perspective. It creates true dilemma when Cooper chooses to accept the mission. Does he have a responsibility to his children, or does his duty to humanity outweigh his parental bonds? Nolan doesn’t try to make this decision heroic or paint Cooper as a martyr. He loads him down with guilt and regret knowing this decision may ruin his relationship with Murph forever. She may never forgive him, and they may never see each other again. The weight of this decision terrifies Cooper.
Specificity also grounds the emotional core. We believe Cooper and Murph love each other because of how Nolan grounds their relationship. They bond over science. They joke about driving too fast. They make a nightly tradition of watching the moon landing broadcast. When Cooper reassures her he’ll return to Mars and Murph pushes him to say goodbye, we understand why she’s making that request. We know they love each other without Nolan having to spell it out. Anne Hathaway’s character goes through a similar emotional journey. Her big speech about how love is the key to deciphering gravity isn’t important because it’s scientifically sound theatre, it’s important because she’s sitting in genuine grief over her best friend’s body.
The Impossible and the Inevitable: Hard Science Vs. Nolan’s Nose
Interstellar walks the line between hard science fiction and metaphysical claptrap. Nolan consulted with physicist Kip Thorne at every stage of production, who helped translate current scientific theory into filmic terms. The depiction of black holes and relativistic effects, as well as the design of Gargantua, is some of the most accuratescience you’ll find in modern cinema. The spaceships are designed with actual, plausible future technology in mind. Characters repeatedly mention the scarcity of resources as a reason to leave Earth, grounding the story’s stakes in real-world environmental concerns.
Films like pick away at these admirable commitments to scientific accuracy. The movie throws all caution to the wind when Cooper enters a tesseract and taps into gravity to solve Murph’s equations. This entire sequence abandons any pretense of scientific integrity Nolan established in favour of pulling the plot’s ripcord. Future humans built the wormhole and the tesseract to receive this information and ensure humanity’s survival. Sure, NASA had the technology to build a wormhole but not advanced enough to send themselves information in four-dimensional space? Cool! OK, let’s roll with that.
Brand’s big speech about love acting as a guiding light pulls the same metaphorical nonsense. It’s an easy out for every scientific inconsistency the movie can’t explain away. Did Cooper actually travel through a fourth spatial dimension to communicate with Murph or are we supposed to buy into the film’s supernatural mumbo-jumbo? Does love allow Cooper to connect to Murph like some mystical sixth sense, or can his love for Murph literally alter the structure of the universe and allow him to tap into Murphy’s bedroom? The film struggles to articulate exactly what it thinks about scientific materialism.
Again, John isn’t wrong to criticise these aspects of the film. There’s a legitimate fear that allowing blockbuster fare to present mumbo-jumbo like this in the same vehicle that seriously depicts relativity will leave audiences uncertain about what they can take seriously. Interstellar sells itself as caring about the science so hard it hurt until it reaches conclusions about love and consciousness that defy the materialism it otherwise promotes. If anything, the movie’s blockbuster methodology amplifies these problems. It wants you to believe everything Nolan and crew throw at you.
Part of me loves the scene when Cooper solves the gravitational equation using literal gravity. It’s equal parts clever problem solving, metaphor for the film’s themes about embracing love rather than giving into fear, and a literalisation of how love can connect us despite endless distances. The tesseract sequence allows Nolan to finish his film on the emotional crescendo he’s been building toward since Cooper first learns about the water planet. Cooper taps into gravity to save Murph’s life the same way he taps into her childhood bedroom to travel through time.
Maybe every piece of celluloid trash that acts like Interstellar doesn’t need to pay such strict adherence to established science. At least Nolan established a strict adherence to established science.
Persistent Images: Visuals That Last
Interstellar may be Nolan’s most impressive technical achievement. His insistence on practical effects and shooting segments of the movie in gigantic IMAX cameras reaches an apex here. Ever look at something filmed in 65mm and wonder why the fuck more movies don’t shoot on that format? “Ah yes, Interstellar. Good call.” Scenes like the soybean fields, the Cooper/Murph farewell, the Endurance docking sequence benefit from shooting in a format that few films outside of road trips utilise anymore.
The dedication to practicality bleeds into the rest of the film’s design. The Endurance feels like an actual spaceship that real humans might design and fly, and yet it maintains perfect symmetry to serve the story’s thematic needs. The ship spins to create artificial gravity, but it also provides visual representation for the cyclical nature of the film’s themes regarding time and returning home. TARS and CASE are impeccably designed robots that exhibit strong personalities despite utilising practical effects instead of CGI anthropomorphism.
Every new world the astronauts visit feels terrifyingly real thanks to Nolan’s preference for practical environments enhanced by visual effects, rather than replaced with them. The ice planet, for example, was filmed in Iceland. The water planet was shot using giant water tanks and clever lighting techniques to give the illusion that the water was closing in on Ryan Gosling. These environments reflect themes the film has about humanity’s utter pointlessness in the grand scale of the universe, all while remaining eerily convincing.
My favourite set piece is the docking sequence. Watching Cooper manually adjust the Endurance’s rotation to match that of the space station employs a combination of practical models and handheld camerawork that creates legitimate tension. It’s a technical challenge for our characters, yes. It also tests Cooper. It references larger themes about the film attempting to balance. Hans Zimmer’s use of an organ as a central piece to the score underscores every emotional beat without undercutting what’s happening visually.
It’s good a film this long can demand that kind of patience and reward you if you stick with it. Interstellar recently came back to theatres and made $4.5 million from 166 screens across the US and Canada (AP News), according to CNBC. Though I read somewhere else that it made $4.4 million at 165 theatres (Entertainment Weekly, odd way to frame that headline), proving people still care about watching the heck out of this movie on the big screen.
Ten years later, this commitment to practical effects and shooting on large formats remains both refreshing and rare.
Out Here But Still Alive: Impact and Interesting Side-effects
A whole slew of factors made Interstellar a blockbuster film about space arriving right at the culture’s perfect moment. The discovery of actual exoplanets capable of supporting life. Actual private space companies launching tourists and, hopefully soon, astronauts. Public consciousness about climate change entering the mainstream. Hollywood loves nothing more than granting the cultural zeitgeist’s asks, and Interstellar came packaged in enough IMAX popcorn to kill a small horse. The notion of Earth rapidly becoming uninhabitable until human ingenuity discovers a new home planet to support future generations resonated with contemporary fears about climate change without feeling too on-the-nose about it.
Interstellar influenced a glut of subsequent space exploration films that attempted to duplicate its commercial and critical success. Its worldwide box office of $681 million (Wikipedia) on a $165 million budget (Box Office Mojo) proved studios were willing to gamble on original, adult-oriented sci-fi given the potential payoff. It’s opening of $47.5 million (Box Office Mojo) dispelled any notion that challenging material couldn’t find broad audience appeal if presented correctly.
The film’s legacy continues to be mixed. It’s touted as Nolan’s masterpiece by fans who respond to its ambitious themes yet shrugged off by others who find its pulpy metaphysics impossible to ignore. Interstellar provided future filmmakers with the blueprint for successfully blending genuine scientific and pseudoscientific speculation. The emotional sincerity that makes Cooper and Murph’s relationship compelling also facilitates Interstellar’s cheesiest moments. Big budget filmmaking will always be caught between looking smart and reaching masses who scoff at “intellectual” entertainment.
Thorne’s involvement with the production helped raise the bar for how astronomy is depicted onscreen. Anyone who watched Interstellar and didn’t learn anything about black holes was willfully ignorant. That visualization of Gargantua has actually produced several legitimate research papers about how light behaves around such massive objects. Millions of people around the world now have a greater understanding of relativistic time dilation because of this movie, and that is no small feat.
Its flirtation with metaphysical elements and willingness to throw out the scientific “rules” it established for emotional payoffs did a disservice to the former. By presenting fiction as potential fact, Nolan may have actually hindered future interest in space exploration. We got to see a black hole up close, sure. But how does NASA convince future generations to care about actual science when movies like Interstellar propose better alternatives?
No Plan B: Why Interstellar Deserves Your Emotional Investment
Interstellar is important because it tries. Even its failures are ambitious attempts to blend big-budget filmmaking technique with genuine emotional stakes rarely placed on blockbuster canvases. The movie falls short of these ambitious goals because Nolan shot for the fucking moon. And reached it. Most science fiction cinema doesn’t attempt anything like Interstellar risks.
The film understands that emotion sounds silly when you think about it too hard. Real love, the kind that Cooper feels for his daughter and sacrifices everything to protect, is antithetical to the cold, cruel nature of the universe. Human connection means nothing on the cosmic scale. Parental love drives every decision our protagonist makes. We believe Cooper loves Murph so deeply he’ll travel to space and beyond to find a new home for future generations because of how Nolan centres their relationship throughout. Everything he does is an attempt to not say goodbye.
In a summer dominated by snarky superheroes and dystopian nightmares, Nolan championed wonder and curiosity above all else. Interstellar wants you to believe in love. It wants you to care about these people, and it damn sure wants you to look up at the stars and question what’s out there. Science can only answer so many questions. Sometimes you have to throw science out the window and just feel.
Even Nolan’s worst cinematic sins come from a place of trying to elevate the material. How often do blockbuster films bother trying to improve themselves? Christopher Nolan made a sci-fi film about visiting galaxies far, far away that demanded you care about the characters that just so happen to explore legitimate scientific theory. Interstellar asks you to experience wonder through both a microscope and a telescope. Balance those two extremes and you’ll land somewhere in the middle. Interstellar is nothing if not accurately representative of our own chaotic universe.
Kathleen’s a lifelong reader who believes science fiction is literature, full stop. From her book-filled home in Seattle, she writes about thoughtful, character-driven sci-fi that challenges ideas and lingers long after the last page. She’s a champion for under-read authors and timeless storytelling.