Lunacy – from Late Latin lunaticus “moon-struck,” from Latin luna “moon”
The yearning to reach the stars runs deep in Baby Boomers like myself. We grew up with the deep, ingrained, cultural mythos that we were headed for a moon base by the end of the 1970s and, after that the planets. Beyond that, the stars. But then the Reagan years and the drumbeat for smaller government and lower taxes for the wealthy and the era of big government was over.
I think Christopher Nolan nurses that nostalgia for a time when we were going places. I think he tries to capture that in Interstellar. Judging through that lens, Interstellar is a beautiful film that harkens our imaginations to recall the thrill of watching 2001: a space odyssey for the first time in a theater. It makes a Baby Boomer’s heart ache with that possibility that we were this close to finding a wormhole that would open all of the heavens for us.
But, that is lunacy.
Interstellar
2014
Paramount Pictures, Legendary Pictures, Syncopy
Directed by Christopher Nolan
While Interstellar is beautiful beyond doubt, it is beauty layered atop logical missteps, strange directorial choices, and lazy writing. It features as fine example of bootstrap paradox as one can find in cinema. Interstellar gets one bit of science right: the madness of realitivity, the dance between gravity, space, and time. From Cooper and Brand’s point of view the story plays out over a very few weeks, as deacdes pass for their loved ones on Earth or Romily abord the orbiting ship. It’s worth watching for the sci-fi fan if only to see that reality sink in after 60 years of Star Trek’s magic warp speed. Though one wonders, why would humanity want to create colonies in a system so close to a massive black hole when such stellar bodies are really only good at the one job—sucking in matter and locking it away from the universe forever.
There is a point where the film slips its grip on that elegant grasp of physics. Once Cooper falls into the event horizon of Gargantua (a delightful name for a black hole), science is swapped with sentiment. The firm laws of the universe are traded for the satisfactory feeling that love is a force all on its own. And this force allows Cooper to start his own mission by sending data via gravitons to a watch back in his daughter’s bedroom?
Pop. That’s the sound of my head exiting Interstellars beautiful world and cringing.
Listen. Interstellar is beautiful. It has GREAT robots. A lot of the cience is pretty good. Some of the science is just awful. Biut it’s still a gripping cinematic experience with the best use of surround sound (if you’ve got a subwoofer turn it up) I’ve ever heard/felt. It’s worth the time.
But it’s lunacy.
I have to give this film five stars.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️