“We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt,” said Cooper.

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It always ends up in a long discussion whether Christopher Nolan’s works are mind blowing or emotional. Most of his works have proven that both sides exist—with perplexing-intricate plot structure and emotion depth (along with some crowd-pleasing twist also in-depth gates and stuff). From Insomnia to Inception, the answer is never made clear—not until Nolan presents Interstellar, an “out-of-the-comfort-zone” answer from the master-class direction to such discussion.

Inspired by the work of theoretical physicist, Kip Thorne (executive producer and scientific consultant of this movie),  Interstellar is about interstellar voyage to save the entire human race. The future Earth is dying—mysterious blight makes sources of food diminishes; the only hope of humanity is finding a new home somewhere over the stars using a newly found Einstein-Rosen Bridge fashioned wormhole near Saturn. From there, a former NASA pilot, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) accepts a nebulous mission—leaving his family,  to lead humanity out of their doom, without knowing whether he would see his family again or not.

Interstellar is, indeed, a master-class in cinematic experience with mesmerizing visuals—manifesting what’s beyond astrophysical science into a logical near-reality fantasy (with shots of nebula, wormholes, and reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey) with a deep family theme. Translating astrophysics theories into a story is never an easy task, moreover, if it’s a sentimental story… moreover, a sentimental sci-fi blockbuster; yet, the ambitious Nolan Bros have made it—Interstellar makes the science stomach-able to audiences as it goes structuring the layered conflicts in the story, making it a unity, and composing Nolan trademarks. It’s true that moments to moments in this movie seems jumbled and (almost) impossible to put in a piece; however, it’s worth the duration to finally see an entire ‘coherence’ eventually (although I prefer this movie ends 30 minutes earlier—leaving some resolution as some post-viewing discussion), thanks to Nolan who has put more trust to the audiences more than he did in Inception.

Surprisingly, we don’t see many faces of Nolan’s former collaborators in Interstellar (save Michael Caine and Anne Hathaway, of course); but that’s not a bad thing. McConaughey, who leads the ensemble, is in the top of his stardom, along with Chastain and Casey Affleck; but that’s not all, when Matt Damon suddenly appears out of the blue, I bet this is one of the best ensemble in Nolan’s work (along with The Dark Knight and Inception ensemble). Mackenzie Foy appears to be the one who steals my attention—her portrayal of McConaughey’s daughter is just perfect. From behind the scene, DoP Hoyte van Hoytema (Her) fills the gap left by Wally Pfister (who works for his directorial debut) fantastically catches the beauty and presents the real interstellar cinematic experience visually the way Lubezki did in Gravity; while Hans Zimmer—Nolan’s all-time collaborator—makes the interstellar journey more alive with what can be his best intergalactic arrangement, which sounds very different from any of his works before.

Interstellar might not be Nolan’s best movie, but it’s definitely not his worst. It’s a journey of trust from a brilliant director to his devoted audiences (haters gonna hate, yet, even if I’m a lay audience of Nolan’s movies I’d still love it); a piece of work that deviates from the director’s trademark. Interstellar is structurally less-mind-blowing than any of Nolan’s previous work, yet it’s emotionally and scientifically too mind-blowing. And now, I’m just bedazzled.

Interstellar (2014)

Drama, Sci-Fi, Adventure Directed by: Christopher Nolan Written by: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan Starred by: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, John Lithgow, David Gyasi, Wes Bentley, Mackenzie Foy Running Time: 169 mins Rated PG-13 for some intense perilous action and brief strong language

IMDb | Official Site